Marcel PROUST Signed Autograph Letter - The Title of the Search for Lost Time

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Marcel PROUST Signed Autograph Letter - The Title of the Search for Lost Time:
$32029.20

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Marcel PROUST (1871.1922)

Signed autograph letter to Baroness Aimery Harty of Pierrebourg.

Seven pages in-8°.

Slnd [shortly before July 10, 1913]

Kolb, Volume XII, pages 225-228.

"The overall title of my two volumes is: In Search of Lost Time. The first volume is called "On Swann's side" Everyone finds this title horrible. But I'm too tired to change. »

Exceptional and long signed autograph letter, addressed by Marcel Proust to his friend the Baroness Aimery Harty de Pierrebourg, writer under the pen name of Claude Ferval.

In Marcel Proust’s sprawling correspondence, the game of worldliness occupies a prominent place; truly literary and more intimate letters are all the more desirable.

Stepmother-in-law of Georges de Lauris, one of Marcel Proust’s comrades met in 1903 and who was a listened advisor for the drafting of what would become Against Sainte-Beuve, Marguerite de Pierrebourg (1856-1943) was first a painter before turning to writing." Her first novel was distinguished by the Académie française and in 1912 she became president of the Prix de la Vie heureuse (future Prix Fémina), thus occupying an important place in Parisian literary life. Marcel Proust frequented her salon and consulted her on literary matters.

In particular, she witnessed the difficult gestation of the first volume of "Looking for wasted time. Rejected by Fasquelle, the Nouvelle Revue française and then Ollendorff - despite friendly recommendations from friends in the first place including Louis de Robert - this first volume puzzled by its object and worried by its volume. Proust eventually agreed to split it into several volumes, forcing him to rewrite some chapters." The title was also the subject of criticism from the author’s friends, including the first of its proofreaders and promoters, Louis de Robert, who found the syntagm From Swann "Inconceivable as much as it is."

It’s in this difficult context – both exhausted and almost fatalistic – that Proust addresses his friend, first congratulating her on a recent biography and then pointing out the importance of her correspondent’s childhood memories, a way of "time rediscovered": Proust’s response to her friend is as follows: « I did not imagine that Catholicism had played such a big role in your childhood, I did not know you were so attached to the memory of the processions (I say this sympathetically as I am exactly like that). Do you not know about Louise de la Vallière the Carmelite by Reynaldo Hahn. Mendès' libretto was weak, but the music was both of the time and always. »

Then, stressing the importance of his correspondent’s role as an advisor (“ were you not, I believe the only person, whom I once asked for advice on an edition of my pastiches. And the bad will of the publishers kept me from running it. »), he humorously addresses the difficulties encountered in publishing the first volume of the Search :

« For the book I am finishing I would love your advice […]. I had to, my book having nearly 1,500 pages (and pages without a blank, with a huge number of lines), put it in two volumes under different titles, like people who have a tapestry too big for their apartment and are forced to cut it in half. But now that I have corrected the proofs of the first volume which is about 680-700 pages, here I am told that no one will ever read a book of this length. »

He claims he doesn’t care about success but that he’s willing to accept further changes if necessary:

« No consideration of success could (and I proved it by my struggle with my publishers) decide me to change the division of this book (already different from what I wanted). But if this is not success, but read. If really my work is to remain unknown, then perhaps I will resolve to make either a first volume of 500 pages or three small volumes of 200 that would be sold at a time, in some sort of case. If you see an opinion to give me on this without getting tired of answering me tell George who never writes to me again, what you think and let him also tell me what he thinks (the book will lose a lot to this division but finally if we do not have to read it in the first case, it is even better that it is then recomposed in the memory of readers). »

Discretion from Grasset, the volume’s publisher (on the author’s account), is asked of his correspondent and then he makes this confession, upsetting in that he confesses to fatigue and even despondency: « The overall title of my two volumes is: In Search of Lost Time. The first volume is called "On Swann's side" Everyone finds this title horrible. But I'm too tired to change. »

Full text :

« Madame, I cannot tell you the grateful emotion your letter caused me. I am so ill at this moment that I differ from telling you at length about this touching figure that you have preserved and saved; what a moving thing that art is since its last judgment can thus resurrect the one that waited under its slab ("Hinc Surrectura", says the tomb), and since in its mysterious chemistry it knows how to make appear both through each other the soul of the model and the soul of the painter, of the two Friends who have crossed the distance of centuries to join each other. Who will say which one took the first steps, the animator in search of a deserving and disdained death into whom to transfuse her life, or the soul in pain of a new incarnation who came to solicit her, obsess her dream and try her brush."

I did not imagine that Catholicism had played such a big role in your childhood, I did not know you were so attached to the memory of the processions (I say this sympathetically as I am exactly like that). Do you not know about Louise de la Vallière the Carmelite by Reynaldo Hahn. Mendès' libretto was weak, but the music was both of the time and always. You see I am talking to you in spite of myself about your book. I just wanted to tell you that if you really care a little about what I think, which makes me very proud, I assure you that nothing is more reciprocal. Moreover were you not, I believe the only person, whom I once asked for advice on an edition of my pastiches. And the bad will of the publishers kept me from running it.

For the book I am finishing I would love to have your board and you should tell George to write it to me with his. I had to, my book having nearly 1,500 pages (and pages without a blank, with a huge number of lines), put it in two volumes under different titles, such as people who have a tapestry too big for their apartment and are forced to cut it in half. But now that I have corrected the proofs of the first volume which is about 680-700 pages, here it isI am told no one will ever read a book of this length.

No consideration of success could (and I proved it by my struggle with my publishers) decide to change the division of this book (Already different from what I wanted). But if it's not success, but reading, if really my work should remain unknown, so I may resolve to make either a first volume of 500 pages or three small volumes of 200 that would be sold at a time, in some sort of case. If you see an opinion to give me on this without getting tired of answering me tell George who never writes to me again, what you think and let him also tell me what he thinks (the book will lose a lot to this division but finally if we do not have to read it in the first case, it is even better that it is then recomposed in the memory of readers).

But let Georges who knows my publisher (Grasset) not tell him about this hesitation, because I have not submitted it to him and will only tell him about it if I decide, which will be very hard for me.

The overall title of my two volumes is: In Search of Lost Time. The first volume is called "On Swann's side" Everyone finds this title horrible. But I'm too tired to change.

I'm glad George didn't see me. I lost so much weight he wouldn't recognize me. Farewell Madam and thank you again for giving me encouragement which I may have taken too literally in allowing myself to write you these last few pages and deign to accept my respectful and admiring tributes. Marcel Proust. »

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