Bidspirit auction | NOBRE (António). SÓ. Lisboa. 1898.

NOBRE (António). SÓ. Lisboa. 1898. - NOBRE (António) SÓ . 2.ª ed. Lisboa: Guillard, Aillaud & C.ª, 1898. 172, [4] pp.: il.; 200 mm. ”Só” is the only work published during António Nobre's lifetime (Porto, 1867; Foz do Douro, 1900) and one of the absolutely central landmarks of 19th-century Portuguese poetry. The first edition was published in Paris in 1892 by Léon Vanier—the same publisher of Verlaine, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud—in a small print run that circulated mainly among Lisbon's intellectual circles and which the author himself described as ”the saddest book in Portugal.” The 1898 edition, revised, enlarged, and illustrated, was the second and last published during the author's lifetime, who died two years later at only thirty years old, succumbing to tuberculosis. The distance between the two editions is crucial for understanding the work: the changes introduced in 1898 are radical, both in the cuts and additions and in the meticulous revision of the poems, rearranged into sections that compose a mythical-symbolic biography of the subject. The 1898 edition is, in short, the definitive form of the book, the one that the poet considered the finished expression of his poetics—a synthesis of ultra-romanticism, decadentism, and French symbolism, with the innovative use of colloquial discourse and rhythmic and strophic diversification. Due to its intrinsic quality and its status as the only authorized edition in Portugal, the 1898 edition is unusual and highly valued by collectors and bibliophiles. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate