Marcel PROUST & Lucien DAUDET
Autour de soixante lettres de Marcel Proust
Gallimard, Paris 1929, 15x19,5cm, relié.
First edition, one of the copies of the press service.
Binding half black morocco, back with five nerves, marked "Copy Jean Cocteau" stamped in gold foot back, marbled paper plates, and contreplats combed guards lined paper, preserved covers and backs, gilded head, binding signed P. Goy & C. Vilaine.
Precious and beautiful autograph signed Lucien Daudet Jean Cocteau: "... Memories, memories ..." Within the trio - almost a threesome - Proust-Daudet Cocteau, mingle inextricably love stories, friendship and literary emulation. To the passions and jealousies which it is based, the nascent work of the three artists and confronts says.
The first novel Lucien Daudet evokes passion forbidden for Marcel Proust was inspired by Cocteau for his
Jean Santeuil, while prohibiting chewable Daudet, "you're out of this book, you make too much of my heart I can paint you objectively '' he registered dedication on the first of five copies on Japan
Du côté de chez Swann. Jealous lovers and true friends, like this warning Daudet Cocteau: "Marcel is great, but it is a horrible insect. You will understand one day, "the three writers fall in love and déprennent each other.
Through a rich correspondence, they seduce "If I love you / if you love me / if we love" (Proust Cocteau, July 1910) was criticized their external affinities: "You are a be admirable but you are not a true friend "(Proust Cocteau, July 1913), but also to support and encourage the development of their respective genius they attend the premises.
So is it in the alcove Haussmann Proust, while they still virtually nothing published, Cocteau submits his first poems, Lucien Daudet his timid or pictorial romantic attempts and Proust scattered excerpts from his current work endless , each vowing to other deep admiration.
The first work of Lucien Daudet,
Dead Path, bold story of a beautiful young man bewitched by a wealthy industrialist son of "elegant as a fashion plate", called Marcel Proust is publicly praised for the "sense of pathetic observation "of his protege.
Similarly the young Cocteau sees it rewarded with a very intimate tribute for his
Dance of Sophocles: "It is exciting to think that this single flower so beautiful and sweet, so innocent and if you are leaning, could rise and build without the rod flexes and cease to please and be flexible, this huge and strong and dense column of thought and perfume. "(Proust,
Correspondence, Volume XI, p.148)
Proust, for his part, due in part to his two friends the publication of
Swann and echo done his work: "giant miniature, full of mirages, bunk gardens, games between space and time, wide fresh touches to the Manet "(Cocteau in
Excelsior)," Never, I believe, analyzing everything is made ??our existence was not pushed too far. " (Daudet in
Le Figaro). The exclusive relationship qu'entretinrent Daudet Proust and Cocteau between 1896 and 1913 was probably partly due to the artistic development of Lucien Daudet, and Cocteau had to overcome her sultry models to achieve completely.
Unfailing friendship and "memories" are all that remain of the years of loving intimacy between three artists who released their talent and their lives announced entry into modernity.
Exceptional copy together one last time, in a dedication accomplice, the three special friends.