GIDE André (1869-1951)

Lot 126
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Estimation :
600 - 800 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 715EUR
GIDE André (1869-1951)
L.A.S. "André Gide", Biskra 12 December [1903], to Eugène MONTFORT; 4 pages petit in-4 tabbed and bound in a small in-4 cardboard volume (Montecot). Beautiful letter on Gérard de Nerval. [Eugène MONTFORT (1877-1936) has just founded the magazine Les Marges.] "Please count me among your subscribers. I have always taken a keen interest in what you do, and I send you my warmest wishes for the success of Les Marges. May they last longer than the precious Taches d'Encre [Maurice Barrès' magazine], to which only they can be compared. - And already, I like the look, the characters, and the pleasure that one feels that you have taken in them. Your study of Gérard de Nerval is delicate, and your writing is charming"... He agrees with Montfort about Hugo: it is interesting to note that NERVAL, the only Romantic who knew foreign literature well, was "the best equipped to react against the least French of influences, - that of Hugo's romanticism - or at least not to let himself be taken in by it". But he does not forgive Montfort a few remarks about Nerval's "flat" style or his lack of height of mind, etc. These remarks are friendly: "it is not as a pawn that I am speaking to you. To write well is our duty. You feel it, and seem to have in you everything you need to write well. So be demanding towards you and forgive my sympathy for this indiscreet intrusion"... He also thanks him in P.S. for his "kind lines about Pretexts. I am happy that you felt, in my article on "Oscar WILDE", the tears I shed". The following are some recommendations to Montfort who wishes to speak about Saul in the next issue of his magazine: "Don't forget that Saul will soon be 6 years old. I have come a long way since then, as you will have seen in Candaule, and today look at Saul with a hostile eye, so different is he from what I would like to be now". That's why he has sent this small, off-the-shelf edition to very few people. "Yet I wished you to know him, for there was a time when he, who I was, loved him". [The edition bringing together Saul and King Candaule has just been published by the Mercure de France (1904).] A copy of the article Un romantique que nous pouvons aimer, Gérard de Nerval, written and published by Montfort in the first issue of his magazine Les Marges, has been bound together.
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