Pastiches et mélanges - L'exemplaire de René Boylesve

First edition on ordinary paper, despite a false statement of third edition.
Handsome copy signed and inscribed by Marcel Proust to René Boylesve.
Housed in a half kaki morocco over marbled paper boards chemise and slipcase (with flaps), spine very slighlty faded with gilt inscriptions of provenance at foot, lined with light green paper.
One very pale angular dampstain.
Provenance : Heilbronn's library, with his ex-libris.

René Boylesve discovered the work of Marcel Proust in 1913, upon the publication of the first volume of the Recherche. Initially disconcerted by Proust's writing, he soon became an enthusiastic admirer: "Our own writing is ruined by his. We have labored in vain. Proust obliterates the literature of the past fifty years" (quoted by Émile Gérard-Gailly, "Note liminaire," in René Boylesve, Marcel Proust, Quelques échanges et témoignages, 1931, p. 24). As for Proust, his admiration for Boylesve mentioned in this copy's inscription is not feigned; a few months before his death, Proust praised Boylesve's novels, celebrating not only "an art seemingly so simple yet saying everything" but also "a supreme refinement of technique" (Marcel Proust, Correspondance, vols. XX and XXI, 1991, pp. 332 and 778).

The two men were not close but corresponded from 1917 onward. In sending Boylesve a copy of his Pastiches et mélanges, Proust must have delighted him: aside from his activies as a writer, Boylesve was a seasoned bibliophile. Thus, regarding another of his works, Proust showed this delicate consideration: "I had some hesitation concerning your copy. Usually, those printed for me without publisher's mark are somewhat finer than the 'regular copies.' This time, the superiority is not apparent to me; and as I am incapable of distinguishing 'pur fil' from the rest, I do not know which of the two sorts of copies is preferable. [...] You would be infinitely kind to tell me what you would like. It is because I know you to be a bibliophile that I write to you about a book of mine, a matter of little importance [...]" (Marcel Proust, op. cit., vol. XXII, pp. 156-157).