Émile Nelligan et son œuvre: The 1903 Imprint and the 1904 First Edition
Sometimes the most revealing detail in a first edition is the disagreement between the date printed in the book and the date on which readers could first obtain it.
That is the case with Émile Nelligan et son œuvre, a landmark in the literary history of Montréal and Québec. A first-edition copy may bear the date 1903 in its imprint, but scholarship establishes that the completed book appeared in February 1904. Both dates belong in an accurate bibliographical description.
The poet and his first collection
Émile Nelligan (1879–1941) wrote some of French Canada's most memorable Symbolist verse while still very young. His poems appeared in periodicals, but the collected volume established the scale of his achievement for a broader readership. The 1904 publication included 107 poems and was issued in a small printing of approximately 300 copies, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Louis Dantin's essential contribution
Louis Dantin—born Eugène Seers—undertook the selection, editing and early printing of Nelligan's poems. His departure in 1903 interrupted the project, which was subsequently completed with the involvement of Nelligan's family and the Librairie Beauchemin. Dantin's prefatory essay was central to the first reception of the poet's work. The story is therefore not simply of a posthumously assembled text: Nelligan was alive when the book appeared, although his literary career had already been interrupted.
Identifying and describing a copy
When cataloguing an example, transcribe the title-page imprint faithfully, noting its 1903 date and separately indicating the February 1904 issue. Examine the binding, pages and any ownership evidence, and compare the complete text and preliminaries with a bibliographical reference. Avoid treating the imprint year alone as proof of the actual publication date.
The distinction matters beyond rarity. This first collection helped shape the way generations of readers understood Nelligan and French-Canadian poetry.
Sources: Dictionary of Canadian Biography: Émile Nelligan; Presses de l'Université de Montréal: critical edition and publication history.
Further reading at MFLIBRA
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