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SOLD

Réf : 55729

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Gustave FLAUBERT

Salammbô enrichi d'une lettre autographe signée

Michel Lévy frères, Paris 1863, 16x24cm, relié sous étui.

Salammbô
 

First edition, one of 25 numbered copies on Holland paper, the only leading copies.
Rare and very sought after according to Clouzot.
 
Binding in full burgundy morocco, spine in four compartments, gilt place and date at the foot, gilt roll tooling on the spine ends, double gilt fillets on the leading edges, pastedown endpapers in full lilac morocco richly decorated with a central gilt cartouche enhanced with gilt interlacings, iridescent burgundy silk endpapers, following endpapers of marbled paper, covers and spine preserved, all edges gilt, wonderful lined binding in full morocco signed by Blanchetière; slipcase edged with burgundy morocco, marbled endpapers, brown felt interior.
A trace of adhesive in the margin of one of the endpapers, likely from a library description label which has disappeared from our copy.
 
Our copy is enriched with an important signed handwritten letter from Gustave Flaubert sent to the archaeologist Charles-Ernest Beulé, related to his researches for the writing of Salammbô. Two pages written in black ink on a folded leaf mounted on the guards. The recipient of this letter has affixed nine handwritten lines, a rough draft of his future response, after Flaubert's letter.
 
This letter was transcribed and reproduced on the website of the Centre Flaubert at the Université de Rouen. The transcriber of this letter explains: “Are the lines written under the signature from Beulé or from Flaubert himself? The handwriting resembles his. Stéphanie Dord-Crouslé suggests that Flaubert may have gone to see Beulé and write under his dictation these points that answer the questions posed.” This hypothesis seems to us unlikely insofar as we know Charles-Ernest Beulé's response to this letter itself has been digitised by the Centre Flaubert and dated 10 February 1860. This response does not seem to us to infer a visit from Flaubert to Beulé. It seems more probable to us that underneath Flaubert's letter, Beulé wrote a draft of his future response of 10 February 1860, which will be nothing more than an elegant reformulation of his notes.
 
A beautiful and important testimony to the colossal research that Flaubert undertook to write Salammbô.
 
“Started in 1857, the novel was published in 1862, a period when Ancient history returned to fashion and where Carthage 'is in the style of the day' thanks to recent excavations by Charles-Etienne Beulé in Byrsa (1859) and in the Carthaginian ports.” (Vanessa Padioleau, “Flaubert et Carthage : Salammbô, roman polymorphe” in Revue Flaubert, n° 9, 2009). Therefore, it is to one of the specialists in the field that Flaubert addresses his questions, commenting on his recent reading of Ammien Marcel: “I learned, in this same Ammien, that the Carthaginians took Thebes, in Egypt [...] What does that mean? This passage is, I believe, little known”. Flaubert's task is not easy: at the time, little to nothing was known about the period of the Mercenary Revolt which extended over two years, from 240 to 238 BC. He then begins a meticulous work, basing his research on the texts of the great historians of Ancient history which he read in Latin in the text. The letter that we offer shows his great mastery: “I learned, in this same Ammien, that the Carthaginians took Thebes, in Egypt xvii, ch. iv. “Hanc inter exordia pandentis se late Carthaginis, improviso excursu duces oppressere Poenorum ” [“At the time where Carthage was beginning its large expansion, the generals of the Phoenicians defeated it by an unexpected attack”].”
 
The result of this in-depth research will namely be used to describe the gate of Carthage.
 
A superb and very rare copy of one Gustave Flaubert's masterpieces in a perfect lined morocco binding by Blanchetière and enriched with a nice handwritten letter.

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