I am not a great fan of coffee-table perfume books, and this one reached me almost by chance. A late bloomer in many ways, I’ve just recently discovered Guerlain’s 1889 Jicky, and realized that for me “the history of Guerlain” signifies little more than how and where I’ve sniffed and chatted: at the Champs Élysées mother ship; at Saks Fifth Avenue in Boston; on the perfume sites. So, pulling my nose away from my precious Jicky sample, I endeavored to bury it in instead in a book on this historic house. In one distracted click, I ordered the least expensive of the lot: $22.00 used. Imagine my surprise when this 13.4 x 9.8 x 0.8-inch, hardcover book reached my doorstep in perfect condition.

Now, coffee-table books are not created to be read cover-to-cover, but for you, Fragrant Readers, that’s precisely what I’ve done. In the first chapter, on the founding of Guerlain in the 19^th century, Colette Fellous links trends in perfumery to the cultural currents that flavored emerging modernist movements in literature, music, the visual and performing arts. The Jicky chapter presents this daring scent composition as an aesthetic bridge to the 20^th century. Fellous argues convincingly that this strange, new blend, which does not imitate a natural bouquet, reflects the artist’s attempts to control nature, as expressed in works such as Joris-Karl Huysman’s 1884 Against Nature (À Rebours). Subsequent chapters (there are six in all), complete an unabashedly Guerlainophilic history of French perfumery, chock-full of tributes to the house classics…

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