Marguerite de Navarre, Louise Labé, Mesdames de Sévigné, Lafayette et de Stael, Sand, Colette, Nemirovsky, Beauvoir, Duras, Yourcenar, Sarraute... Women have left their mark on the history of literature, which has not always done them justice...
"J'étais fort malade Monsieur, quand vous avez bien voulu m'envoyer votre tragédie du 4e siècle que depuis j'ai vainement cherché votre adresse pour vous écrire tout ce que je pensais de cette tragédie où l'on voit ce me semble tous les sentiments et toutes les pensées d'un homme éclairé et énergique. J'espère que les circonstances me rapprocheront de Paris, et si j'ai l'honneur de vous voir Monsieur, je vous exprimerai ma reconnaissance pour le souvenir que vous avez bien voulu me faire parvenir dans le plus triste exil du monde, en vérité je ne me serais pas doutée qu'Auxerre eut jamais été la demeure d'un esprit aussi distingué que le vôtre" (I was quite ill, Sir, when you were so kind as to send me your tragedy of the 4th century, since which I have sought in vain for your address to write to you all that I thought of this tragedy in which one sees, it seems to me, all the sentiments and all the thoughts of an enlightened and energetic man. I hope that circumstances will bring me closer to Paris, and if I have the honor of seeing you, Sir, I will express to you my gratitude for the remembrance you were so kind as to send me in the saddest exile in the world, truly I would never have suspected that Auxerre had ever been the dwelling of a mind as distinguished as yours).
Autograph letter signed by Germaine de Staël and dated 9 January 1809 to Julie Nigris, daughter of Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Two pages written in black on a bifolium. Autograph address on verso, armorial wax seal traces and postmarks.
Usual folds, a tear with a small piece of paper lacking on the address page due to the opening of the seal.
Published as an addendum in Souvenirs de Madame Vigée Le Brun, 1837, vol. III, pp. 264-265.
Germaine de Staël is eagerly awaiting her portrait as Corinne - her novel's heroine- she had commissioned from the famous Vigée-Lebrun. The letter is a precious link in the fascinating history of the painting the baroness would discover a few months later.
"Madam, I have given up on engraving the portrait of your mother. It is too expensive for my whim and I have just suffered a considerable lawsuit that is forcing me to make do with less. But would you be so kind as to tell me when Madam Le Brun will give me the portrait of Corinne? My intention was to send her a thousand écus upon receiving it, but as I have not heard from her, I don't know what to do.
Please be so kind as to get involved and negotiate what I want in this regard. Another pleasing negotiation would be your arrival to Switzerland this summer. Prosper says he will come. Wouldn't M. de Maleteste be seduced by this reunion of all his friends? I dare to count myself among them. Seeing him once, it seemed to me that I was meeting an old acquaintance."
Germaine de Staël addresses Vigée Le Brun's daughter Julie, inviting her and her mother to brighten up her exile. She also tried to gather at her home of Coppet her lover Prosper de Barante as well as Julie's, the Marquis de Maleteste. Dreading solitude, she was determined to invite a host of interesting personalities. Two years earlier, Vigée Le Brun had begun painting a portrait of the baroness depicted as the heroine of her latest novel Corinne. In-between portrait sittings with the baroness, the artist had met the famous members of the so-called Coppet group: Frederick of Prussia, writer Benjamin Constant and salonnière Juliette Récamier. De Staël had already requested a change as soon as the painter had started the canvas and asked for a different landscape in the background. Aware of the somewhat unprepossessing appearance of her model - neither she nor the baroness denied it - Vigée Le Brun created an ambitious portrait mixing antiquity-inspired attire with a furiously romantic allure. She managed to capture the baroness's inspired gaze instead of an expected neoclassical austerity. Despite her enthusiastic initial reactions, Germaine de Staël was not pleased with it and commissioned another portrait from local artist Firmin Massot. The latter produced a poor but faithful copy of the Vigée Le Brun's composition, except for her face and expression he smoothed out and made devoid of any emotion. The baroness's reaction illustrates the irreconcilable dilemma faced by women of letters at the beginning of the 19th century: torn between their identity as intellectual figures (which Vigée Le Brun had magnificently captured in this portrait), and the normative criteria of femininity Germaine de Staël wanted to align with.
A precious piece of correspondence, bringing together two illustrious women - the patron and the artist, whose visions of femininity would soon oppose on either side of the easel.
Mon cher Buloz, voici la lettre à M. Lerminier n'y changez rien. Relisez-en vous même et vous seul l'épreuve. Corrigez les fautes de typographie. Veuillez à la ponctuation et aux guillemets. Il va sans dire que les blancs de mon manuscrits sont le résultat de coupures et de transcriptions que j'ai faites, et ne demandent que de simples alinéas.
Bonjour et amitié,
George ("My dear Buloz, here is the letter to M. Lerminier change nothing. Proofread it yourself and yourself alone. Correct the typographical errors. Mind the punctuation and quotation marks. It goes without saying that the blanks in my manuscript are the result of cuts and transcriptions I have made, and require only simple paragraphs.
Good day and friendship,
George")
This letter perfectly illustrates the stormy yet fruitful collaboration that united François Buloz and George Sand. The latter gave Sand for many years a platform and a means to live by her pen. She published in the Review a great number of masterpieces, including Lettres d'un voyageur (1834-1836), Mauprat (1837), Spiridion (1839), Gabriel (1839), Mademoiselle La Quintinie (1863), Césanne Dietrich (1870). Through his mediation, she also actively participated in the political debates of her time. In 1838, Buloz was the great orchestrator of an ideological duel when Sand "decided to take on the critic Lerminier, who had just made a very critical analysis of the Livre du peuple in the review. Buloz, out of desire for publicity, allowed his two collaborators to publicly exchange blows in the review. Through Lerminier and his superior tone, the review then revealed its rather misogynistic vision of literature and philosophy: 'the time has come for you to give your philosophical opinions more consistency and scope because you are entering a new phase of life and talent. Inspiration and fantasy have raised you to a height where they would not suffice to maintain you. Draw now, madam, new strength from reflection and science'" (Marie-Eve Thérenty, George Sand, François Buloz et la Revue des Deux Mondes).
Sand reacted immediately and sent her response article accompanied by this peremptory missive, ordering Buloz to publish her text as it stood. Lamennais was very touched by her gesture: "I shall always count among the happy circumstances of my life, where I don't count many, to have been defended by you. In publishing my last book, I knew well that it would shock almost everyone, legitimists, juste-milieu, Catholics, even republicans, those at least who want neither God nor liberty, and their number is great, and they have a terrible faith in themselves. I have hoped only in the people who do not make systems, and who, under the influence of primitive and imperishable human instincts, judge by the heart, and judge alone infallibly. Without them I don't know what would become of liberty on earth. M. Lerminier and many others imagine that I speak at random, according to whatever idea of the moment occurs to me. They are mistaken" (Yves Chastagnaret, George Sand, Lerminier et le Livre du Peuple de Félicité Lamennais).
Autograph letter dated from Liane de Pougy to the French archaeologist, curator of the Musée de Saint-Germain and professor of art history at the École du Louvre, Salomon Reinach, 56 lines written in blue ink on one double-sided sheet, written from her property at Clos-Marie in Roscoff where the famous courtesan stayed until 1926.
A small tear in the right-hand margin of the letter, inherent in the enveloping of the missive; another slight tear at the foot, without affecting the text.
Liane de Pougy marvels at the youthful vigor of Reinach, who had just turned 65: ' Many happy returns for your 65 years, which find you so young, so fresh, so green, with such playful (studious) feelings. My friend, your youthful morals hold the secret of your physical youth—as Rosa Josepha said, one sustains the other, one preserves the other—and this, seen head-on. ', while magnifying his radiant intelligence: 'To no longer produce, but to sit atop the high throne of your trophies, formed by all you have wrested from instinct to sacrifice to intellectuality. Why do people always say a well of knowledge instead of a luminous column, a sky, a sun, a star, etc.—in short, something that makes us lift our heads?'
She is waiting for her friend and former lover, the terrible and unfaithful Natalie Clifford-Barney: 'Natalie plans to come to Clos at the end of September. She has a wound to heal here—time, fortunately, has already done part of the work! I have sensitive feelings and, like a musketeer, a good heart but a bad temper. This is the 1st time the amazon has truly aimed at me... Let us speak of it no more'. Liane firmly expresses her wish not to be pitied or consoled for her romantic troubles: 'I have suffered in silence but without resignation. Do not speak of this to Nathanaël... Nathanaël means Philippe, Max Jacob claims, who lives and works near us in the most fascinating way... '.
A beautiful letter by the celebrated courtesan, actress, and writer Liane de Pougy, recounting with restrained candor her romantic disappointments with Natalie Clifford-Barney.
Autograph letter signed by painter Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun addressed to historical painter and portraitist Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot. Two pages in black ink on a bifolium. Autograph address of Mme Haudebourt, 19 rue Rochefoucauld, on verso of second leaf. Usual horizontal folds, tear without damage to the text on the second leaf due to the wax seal. A bibliographer's note in blue pencil on the verso of the last leaf.
First edition.
Former owner's name on upper left corner of title page, spine wrinkled.
Our copy exceptionally contains signatures of several members of the editorial committee of the Association des déportées et internées de la Résistance or former deportees to the Ravensbrück camp, including: Renée Mirande-Laval, Jacqueline Souchère-Richet, Hélène Renal, Rose Guérin, Jacqueline Rigault, Simone Gournay, Marie-Antoinette Allemandi-Clastres, some of whom have added their deportee registration number below their signatures.
First edition, one of 48 copies on pur fil, the only deluxe copies.
Work decorated with illustrations by Jean Hugo.
Light rubbing to extremities of the slipcase.
Superb binding in dark exotic wood marquetry signed Pierre-Lucien Martin, dated 1962.
Binding in chocolate brown box leather with bands, smooth spine, gilt title lengthwise, first cover formed of a mosaic arrangement of dark wood pieces, with grain arranged in opposite directions, bearing the title engraved vertically and the author's name revealed in acrostic, second cover formed of a large panel of the same wood with unfolded grain bordered in chocolate box leather, endpapers and pastedowns of chocolate paper, top edge gilt over deckled edges, covers and spine preserved, slipcase of chocolate paper bordered in chocolate box leather, interior lined with brown felt, elegant ensemble signed Pierre-Lucien Martin and dated on the rear pastedown 1962.
First edition, no limited issue printed, of this exhibition catalog. This solo exhibition of Perrriand's works was held at the Musée des arts décoratifs from February 5 to April 1, 1985.
Scuffing on lower right-hand corner of second cover faded.
With a lot of illustrations, a nice copy.
Signed and dated inscribed copy by Charlotte Perriand to Michel Troche: "... que d'efforts conjugués...Vive l'amité. Charlotte" (...what a combined effort... Long live friendship. Charlotte).
First edition in French, one of 8 numbered copies on Imperial Japan paper, ours being one of 3 hors commerce copies, deluxe printing.
Some foxing to boards and certain deckled edges.
A rare full-margined copy.
First critical edition, with some parts of the text in first edition, illustrated with 10 portraits, 17 views and 10 facsimiles as well as the coats of arms of the Sévigné, Bussy, Grignan and Simiane families as frontispiece to the first volume.
Bound in half red calf, spines with four fine raised bands set with gilt friezes decorated with gilt fleurons and typographical motifs, gilt friezes at head and foot, owner's name gilt at foot of spines, red paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, elegant contemporary Romantic bindings.
Some foxing, manuscript ownership inscriptions in black ink at head of title pages.
Our copy is complete with the eleventh and twelfth volumes "Mémoires de M. de Coulanges suivis de lettres inédites de madame de Sévigné" published in 1820 at the initiative of M. de Monmerqué, editor of the marquise's letters and "Lettres inédites de madame de Sévigné, de sa famille et de ses amis" published in 1827 by the same publisher, which are always lacking to complete this set.
The eleventh volume is illustrated with 1 portrait, 3 facsimiles and 1 plate; the engravings of the twelfth having been bound and distributed throughout the first ten volumes.
Fine set, established in a charming and elegant uniform contemporary Romantic binding.
Very rare typographic edition published one year after the facsimile edition from the Montfaucon Research Center and without Sophie Podolski's consent.
This is why this edition was withdrawn from sale; it is illustrated with drawings and includes a preface by Philippe Sollers.
Spine and boards slightly and marginally lightened, otherwise a rare and handsome copy.
First edition, one of 150 numbered copies on vellum, the only deluxe copy.
Bound in half red chagrin, spine with five raised bands set with gilt dotted lines and decorated with double gilt fillets, marbled paper boards, endpapers and flyleaves of mould-made paper, first cover preserved, speckled top edge.
A pleasant copy.
