The back pocket of the book includes a facsimile of UN COUP DE DÉS  JAMAIS N'ABOLIRA LE HASARD.

In this exegesis, R. G. Cohn collects evidence for the connection between UN COUP DE DÉS and LE LIVRE. They led him to the opinion - and numerous essays on the 50th anniversary of Mallarmé's death supported this opinion - "that the Coup de dés more or less represents the famous BOOK... Tangible evidence exists that prove that the Coup de dés is at least a fragment of Mallarmé's first view."

Mallarmé's words in his autobiographical letter to Verlaine of November 16, 1885, point also in this direction. He writes about his attempt "with the patience of an alchemist," to design the "BOOK... built up and thought through.... It will succeed, perhaps, not to create this work in its entirety, ... but to show an executed fragment of it..."