PROUST Marcel (1871-1922).

Lot 165
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Estimation :
3000 - 4000 EUR
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Result : 8 450EUR
PROUST Marcel (1871-1922).
L.A.S. "Marcel Proust", 44 rue Hamelin [mid-December 1919, to Jean AJALBERT ?]; 4 pages in-8 (trace of tab). Beautiful letter about his work. [Jean AJALBERT (183-1947) is one of the eight members of the Académie Goncourt who signed the letter of December 10, 1919 announcing to Proust that he had received the Prix Goncourt] He thanks his "dear Brother and Master" for the kind mention you made of my books. As I read these lines, which were very valuable to me because they came from you, and as I felt your weariness to read these pages, which seem interminable to you, I realized what a mistake I had made in entitling the work: À La Recherche du Temps perdu. This title, as long as it is not explained by the last volume (Time Regained), perpetuates the misunderstanding between me and my readers, even the most eminent ones, who believe in an unfolding of memories, in something quite similar to "Memoirs". On the contrary, this book is so "composed" that M. Francis Jammes having begged me to remove from the first volume an episode of three pages that he considered revolting, I was about to do it, when I understood that this insignificant "cut" in this first volume, would make collapse the volumes 4 and 5 that he supported. I could provide a thousand examples of this veiled composition, to which I sacrificed everything"...
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