Unpacking His Library: Robert de Montesquiou and the Esthetics of the Book in Fin-de-siècle France

The sale of the personal library of Robert de Montesquiou is a valuable document for a study of the esthetics of the book and the history of reading in fin-de-siècle France. The catalog and related documents reveal that the value Montesquiou attached to books varied according to their author, provenance, and usefulness to him for his own writings. Above all, in line with the esthetics of Symbolism, Montesquiou valued books as decorative objects, capable of stimulating the imagination, especially when encased in highly suggestive bindings, as the example of the publication of his 1892 work, Les Chauves-Souris, makes clear. (In English) (WZS)