There are only 500 copies of Vélin de Rives. This is one of them, number 232, with its editorial binding richly engraved in gold along the spine. Contes Indiens, his magnum opus, is said to have been written during 1893 at the request of Méry Laurent, a friend of the Symbolist writer and an admirer of the tales and legends of India published by Mary Summer in 1878. With all his talent, Stéphane Mallarmé stages a legendary and mysterious India, of princes and princesses, passions, and spells: an invitation to dream an eternal India.