SAINT-EXUPÉRY (Antoine de)

Lot 419
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Estimation :
75000 - 100000 EUR
SAINT-EXUPÉRY (Antoine de)
Autograph and typewritten manuscript of Pilote de guerre. [ca. 1940-1941]. 124 p. in-4 (various sizes) of various papers, ink and pencil of different colours, partial autograph and later foliotation. Very important manuscript of Pilote de guerre for chapters V, IX, X, XIV, XVI, XX, XXI and XXIII-XXVII. Occasional text and inspired text, the work was born from the American exile of Saint-Exupéry. Feeling the need to write a text celebrating the heroism of the airmen who fought, in vain until then, for the freedom of France, the author undertook this project in order to provoke the engagement of the United States in the war. BnF holds an important composite manuscript of this work donated by Helen Mac Kay, the godmother of Nada de Bragance to whom Saint-Exupéry offered a completed typewritten copy of the same work. It is the only manuscript identified by the publishers of his complete works. The one we present here is therefore of major historical and literary importance. Following the example of the BnF manuscript, our manuscript is composed of pages entirely handwritten (69) and pages entirely typed or partly handwritten, partly typed, sometimes mounted by means of collages, the whole largely erased and corrected by the author. The variants with the published text are thus very numerous and several passages are unpublished. A few examples: - chapters V and IX (6 ff.): very old state of the text, with passages inserted later in the same chapters or others; a map entitled "The war. Themes", in which the author seems to have organized in groups and subgroups several themes: "History of a mission", "Life of the group", "Armistice", etc.; - chapter X (1 ff.): paragraphs that we find, very modified, in the published text, with here incipit this question repeated several times: "Beware of what? Commandant Alias?"; - chapter XVI (1 f.): very beautiful passage, from an ancient state of the text: "I remember a striking impression: my g
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