This is a favorite rather than a new acquisition – the 2002 Belles Lettres edition of the works of Marcel Schwob (ISBN 9782251442204). It isn’t complete – it lacks his correspondence (published by Droz, with another volume by Editions Allia dedicated to the Schwob/Robert Louis Stevenson letters) – but it has all his fiction, non-fiction, critical essays, and travel writings. I think this later paperback edited by Schwob’s biographer would cover the same material but I distrust the binding durability on 900 page paperbacks. That said, it is 1/5 the price or less. Editions Allia have also recently been reprinting his major non-fiction studies (on Villon, Rabelais, and argot) but for a while this edition was the single easy access point for anything past the Vies Imaginaires, Le Coeur Double, Le Roi au Masque d’or, and Le Livre de Monelle (In English Wakefield Press have recently been releasing translations of Schwob’s major fiction).
I’m putting pictures of the entire table of contents below because I got frustrated not being able to find them online when buying my copy several years back.
And good for anyone interested in Schwob – there’s a single biography I’ve been able to find – Marcel Schwob ou Les Vies imaginaires by Sylvain Goudemare (editor of the above paperback edition). For all its fullness, I still prefer the brief essay Schwob’s friend Pierre Champion wrote after his death, Marcel Schwob parmi ses livres (reprinted as the preface to Editions Allia’s Catalogue de la bibliothèque de Marcel Schwob). I’ve today bought Marcel Schwob et son temps, also by Pierre Champion and seeming to include letters/thoughts from other friends like Jules Renard and Colette but I’ve got to wait for shipping.
Extracts 