# Is "Une Saison en enfer (A Season in Hell)" by Arthur Rimbaud a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Une Saison en enfer (A Season in Hell) by Arthur Rimbaud (Alliance typographique, 1873) is identified by: Printed at the Alliance typographique (M.-J. The author-financed Brussels original of 1873 is the true first and the only book Rimbaud published himself; the census note is confirmed on this point.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Printed at the Alliance typographique (M.-J. Poot et Compagnie), 37 rue aux Choux, Brussels, October 1873, at the author's expense, in an edition of about 500 copies
- An in-12 pamphlet, approximately 12.5 x 18.5 cm, in printed wrappers
- The decisive points are structural absences: there is NO title page and no half-title — the text begins directly after the wrapper — and the pamphlet ends without terminal leaves
- Text pages are foliated 1 to 53 and the text is dated "Octobre 1873" at the end; a large number of blank pages are distributed through the pamphlet (sources give the total extent as 54 or as 58 pages, and this discrepancy is unresolved among the sources consulted)
- The setting contains numerous misprints and spelling irregularities which scholars still debate as authorial or compositorial; they are original to the sheets and are not a later-state correction
- Because the copies recovered in 1901 are the original 1873 sheets and not a reprint, a genuine first can present as remarkably fresh — freshness is not evidence against authenticity here
- Publisher imprint reads Alliance typographique

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Arthur Rimbaud |
| Publisher | Alliance typographique |
| Year | 1873 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | Printed at the Alliance typographique (M.-J. Poot et Compagnie), 37 rue aux Choux, Brussels, October 1873, at the author's expense, in an… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Printed at the Alliance typographique (M.-J. Poot et Compagnie), 37 rue aux Choux, Brussels, October 1873, at the author's expense, in an edition of about 500 copies. An in-12 pamphlet, approximately 12.5 x 18.5 cm, in printed wrappers. The decisive points are structural absences: there is NO title page and no half-title — the text begins directly after the wrapper — and the pamphlet ends without terminal leaves. Text pages are foliated 1 to 53 and the text is dated "Octobre 1873" at the end; a large number of blank pages are distributed through the pamphlet (sources give the total extent as 54 or as 58 pages, and this discrepancy is unresolved among the sources consulted). The setting contains numerous misprints and spelling irregularities which scholars still debate as authorial or compositorial; they are original to the sheets and are not a later-state correction. Because the copies recovered in 1901 are the original 1873 sheets and not a reprint, a genuine first can present as remarkably fresh — freshness is not evidence against authenticity here.

## Is this the true first?
The author-financed Brussels original of 1873 is the true first and the only book Rimbaud published himself; the census note is confirmed on this point. Rimbaud never settled the printer's bill, took away only about seven to a dozen copies for friends (Verlaine among them), and the balance of the run stayed in the printer's premises undistributed. In 1901 the Belgian bibliophile Léon Losseau found the forgotten stock in Brussels and recovered roughly 425 sound copies, destroying those spoiled by damp — which is why the surviving census is dominated by the Losseau find and why the long-repeated story that Rimbaud burned the edition is false. No contemporaneous UK or US edition exists, so there is no cross-border precedence question. The traps are later editions and reproductions, not rival firsts: the 1892 L. Vanier (Paris) collective volume Poèmes. Les Illuminations. — Une saison en enfer, with Verlaine's notice, is a first collective edition and is frequently offered in language that blurs it with 1873; Genonceaux's Reliquaire (Paris, 1891) is a different book entirely; and a facsimile of the 1873 original was published in 2023 for the sesquicentenary.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition exists for an 1873 Brussels pamphlet. The documented reprint and reproduction tells are: a Paris imprint (Vanier, Genonceaux) rather than Alliance typographique / Poot, Brussels; any date other than 1873 on wrapper or title; and — most importantly — the PRESENCE of a title page, since the 1873 original has none. The 2023 fac-similé and earlier facsimile reproductions reproduce the original setting and must be identified on paper and impression, not on typography.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Une Saison en enfer (A Season in Hell)* by Arthur Rimbaud a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/une-saison-en-enfer-a-season-in-hell
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.