Recueil de l'Académie des Jeux floraux
“From that moment on, Mr. Victor Hugo belonged entirely to literature and poetry” (Auguste Ducoin).
The poetic beginnings of Victor Hugo.
Very rare first edition of the complete collection (1817-1823) of Victor Hugo’s first award-winning poems.
A very fine uncut copy in publisher's wrappers, as issued.
5 volumes in-8, untrimmed copy, contemporary blue temporary wrappers.
216 x 135 mm.
Hugo, Victor. Collection of the Academy of Floral Games.
Toulouse, M. J. Dalles, 1817-1823.
Very rare first edition of this complete collection (1817-1823) of the earliest prize-winning poems by the young Victor Hugo.
“This collection is very rare” (Escoffier, The Romantic Movement, no. 278).
The prize-winning youthful works of Victor Hugo, who was sixteen years old when he first took part in the Floral Games in 1818.
In 1818, then aged 17, he sent four poems in verse to this Toulouse academy, which awarded him several prizes including an exceptional “Gold Lily” (bestowed only twice, the other in 1776) for his Ode on the Restoration of the Statue of Henri IV.
“Les vierges de Verdun” and “Les derniers bardes” are included in the 1819 annual volume.
Victor Hugo was named a member of the academy in 1820, with the title of Master of Floral Games.
These honors helped to make the young prodigy known in the world of letters and the Parisian salons.
Appointed Master of Floral Games, alongside the forty academicians of the prestigious institution, founded in 1323, Victor Hugo thus managed to convince his father of the seriousness of his literary vocation, hampered by law studies pursued without enthusiasm.
“It was in 1815, at the age of thirteen, that the poetic instinct awakened in Mr. Victor Hugo... The young Hugo celebrated in verse the return of the Bourbons in an allegorical tragedy of which only two episodes remain, say the poet’s biographers: the parable of Rich and Poor and the elegy of the Canadian. This happy precocity, equal and perhaps even superior to that of Voltaire, was only revealed some time later, in 1817, following a contest before the French Academy, surprised to crown a schoolboy poet of fifteen. Two years later, Les Vierges de Verdun and the Restoration of the Statue of Henri IV, which remain among the finest odes of Mr. Victor Hugo, won the golden eglantine at the Floral Games Academy of Toulouse; and, the following year, Moses on the Nile earned the poet a third prize and the rank of Master of Floral Games. Mr. Victor Hugo was eighteen at the time.
From that moment, Mr. Victor Hugo belonged entirely to letters and poetry.” (Auguste Ducoin).
Attractive copy, with full margins, preserved in its original paper wrappers.
The complete collection for the years 1817 to 1823 is rare, and extremely rare in original wrappers.
