NERVAL Gérard de (1808-1855). - Lot 182

Lot n° 182
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Result : 3 472EUR
NERVAL Gérard de (1808-1855). - Lot 182
NERVAL Gérard de (1808-1855). L.A.S. "Gérard de Nerval", June 1, 1850, to Jules JANIN; 2 1/2 pages in-8, address. About his play Le Chariot d'enfant, written in collaboration with Joseph Méry. [Le Chariot d'enfant, an Indian play by King Soudraka adapted by Nerval and Joseph Méry, was first performed at the Odéon, directed by Bocage, on May 13, 1850]. "We have found publishers unwise enough to risk, at this moment, a few hundred francs on a drama in verse. They have sent you a proof filled with printing errors and French mistakes, which will be corrected, most of them at least, within two days. A Pole pointed out to him "a frightening line" towards the end: "I would have liked to give him a penny like the students who found mistakes in the Elzévirs, but he asked me to read the whole play, and I feared that the royalties would not be enough to pay for his work. Be good; I know that Bocage has done something to you; that you promised yourself not to talk about the Odeon... But this is a little book that is going to appear; and Bocage is going away for three months... Give us a few lines, if you can. Bad, it doesn't matter; when you speak it is glory - whether the spark is red or white. Deep down, I don't know what color we are, Mery and I, we try to do what is right and what can succeed. We have seen in this play myths that we had not thought of. In any case we would be far below the revolutionary genius of this good king Soudraka... whose work you have at home. You will recognize it by reading it again. There are times when it is good to say everything, or to translate everything, because, whatever one does, it is indifferent "... At the head of the letter, Janin noted: "Fool and poet, distinguished mind if ever there was one. Historian of Rétif de la Bretonne and his successor". Œuvres complètes (Pléiade, ed. Pichois), t. I, p. 1446.
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