Guides littéraires / Guias literarias - Manuscrit original signé d'une chronique réalisée pour le quotidien argentin La Naciòn

Autograph manuscript signed entirely written in Spanish by Valery Larbaud. 12 sheets written in black ink with a regular and slender handwriting. Numerous underlining, corrections and redactions of the hand of Valery Larbaud. Stamp of the magazine La Naciòn bearing the date of December 29, 1923 affixed at the bottom of the last sheet.
Next to each sheet is the handwritten French translation of the chronicle, written in ballpoint pen by Gérard Jean-Aubry, dedicatee of this manuscript, friend, translator and biographer of Valery Larbaud.
Signed autograph signed by Valery Larbaud at the head of the first sheet of the manuscript: "Para G. Jean-Aubry that a dia me hizo el honor de stand a manuscripto. Suffer, V. Larbaud [For G. Jean-Aubry who once did me the honor to ask me for a manuscript. His faithful, V. Larbaud] "
This column entitled "Guias Literarias" was published in the n ° 18822 of the Argentine daily La Naciòn on Sunday, February 10, 1924. Valery Larbaud details the different "literary manuals" necessary for any South American reader wishing to consolidate his knowledge of French literature .
At the end of 1922, the Paris correspondent of the Argentine daily La Naciòn , MF Ortiz Echagüe, addressed Valery Larbaud to ask him for a monthly collaboration for a series of chronicles on French literary life. It is Ricardo Güiraldes, Argentinian writer and close friend of Larbaud who quotes it elsewhere in the manuscript that we propose, which is at the origin of this idea. Larbaud, who was the first great "smuggler" in France of Latin American literature, has already told him one of his dearest dreams: to write in Spanish. The author of Fermina Márquez happily accepts the opportunity that presents itself to him, a double intellectual and linguistic challenge, and immediately goes to work. Through a vast historical fresco, Larbaud prepares an ambitious project: to draw a panorama at once innovative and accessible, capable of awakening the curiosity of the layman and of satisfying the most demanding reader. Rigorous, Larbaud sets up a very precise work plan, dividing the series of articles into four parts. Between 1923 and 1925, he will give La Naciòn twenty-five texts. Desirous of publishing his first work in Spanish, Larbaud then tried, without success, to bring them together and have them published in Buenos Aires under the title Desde la Nave de Plata . The chronicles will only be exhumed in 2003 and published - after having been translated into French - by Gallimard (Valery Larbaud, Du bateau d'argent ).