Oeuvres completes (review)

Bertrand, Aloysius. Œuvres complètes. Helen H. Poggenburg, ed. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2000. Pp. 1176. ISBN 2-7453-0125-X

"Le fameux Gaspard de la Nuit," mentioned by Baudelaire as the "mysterious and brilliant model" for the Spleen de Paris, appeared only in 1842, a year after the death of its author Jacques-Louis-Napoléon Bertrand, whom we know today as Aloysius Bertrand (1807-1841). Although Gaspard de la Nuit has been printed often enough in the twentieth century, this is the first, and only, Œuvres complètes of Bertrand, with which Helen Hart Poggenburg proves that the art of the critical edition is not dead. This impressive tome of 1176 pages brings together, at last, nearly every important document written by Bertrand, in addition to some thirty pages of iconography. Unique and invaluable, this book may not supplant pocket editions of Gaspard de la Nuit for use in classes, but it will be a gold mine for Bertrand scholars worldwide who have never had access to many of the documents assembled here, including Bertrand's verse poetry and short stories, literary and political criticism, theater, journalism, sketches, and notes.

The book begins with a brief and useful introduction that nicely blends elements of Bertrand's life and his work. Since few libraries own the 1926 biography of Bertrand, the details provided in the succinct "Chronologie de la vie et de l'œuvre" represent a major improvement over the typical chronologies of pocket editions that have served until now as the main sourcess of such information.

As for Gaspard de la Nuit, which comes next in this work, it is certainly the most complete and critical version to date. For the first time since Bertrand Guéran's 1925 edition, the text was based on the manuscript, and it is prefaced here with the original "Notice" by Sainte-Beuve that had introduced Baudelaire's and Mallarmé's generations to Bertrand. The notes and variants section is remarkable not only for the precious details from the manuscript, but also because the editor has included many references to the latest secondary criticism, all properly indexed and easy to find in a chronological bibliography near the end of the book. After the pages devoted to the manuscript and variants for Gaspard come the "Documents relatifs à Gaspard de la Nuit." These include Bertrand's notes regarding the typesetting and illustration of his collection, his contract with Renduel and the latter's annonce for the book he never published, and the prospectus by Victor Pavie, who finally had the book printed (after the sculptor David d'Angers had bought back the manuscript).

A complete enumeration of every printing and translation of Gaspard concludes the material dealing directly with Gaspard, making this the new standard edition. However, two thirds of the Œuvres complètes cover other texts and documents. Many of these have remained difficult if not impossible to find, which is the case for a handful of the "Récits, contes et chroniques indépendants de Gaspard de la Nuit" that come next in the Œuvres. As the title of the section implies, these do not include the "chroniques" that were rewritten and incorporated into Gaspard, such as "Jacques-les-Andelys" (336-38) or "Les Lavandières" (351). Rather, the latter appear in the section of variants of the prose poems (to "Les Grandes Compagnies" and "Jean des Tilles," respectively). Bertrand's verse poems, printed in 1926 and again in 1977, but never in the same volume as Gaspard, are placed immediately after these stories, and they benefit from a fresh look at the manuscripts and plenty of notes.

Bertrand's writings for the theater follow, many of them out of print for a century and a half, and the same may be said of the articles dealing with art, theater, literature, and politics. A section of "notes et brouillons" includes previously unpublished comments by Bertrand about works of art he had observed in the Louvre that influenced "Book One...