MAUROIS ANDRÉ (1885-1967)

Lot 171
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2000 - 2500 EUR
MAUROIS ANDRÉ (1885-1967)
AUTHORIZED MANUSCRIPT, Ni ange ni bête, [1918-1919]; 113 ff. small in-4 (23 × 17 cm) written mainly on the front, on sheets in a titled folder, half-box black slipcase. Working manuscript of one of Maurois' early books. The novel was begun during the war at Abbeville, when Maurois was attached to the British army as a translator and liaison officer, an experience that inspired Les Silences du colonel Bramble (1918). After this success, Maurois published Ni ange ni bête, his first real novel, in 1919, with Grasset. He originally wanted to write a biography of Shelley, but did not have sufficient documentation. So he brought the story of Shelley and his first wife, Harriet Westbrook, to France and the time of Louis-Philippe. In a preface to a later edition of the novel, he wrote that he had originally intended to reduce the size of the book, mentioning a "primitive plan" he had prepared, probably the present manuscript. The leaves of this manuscript are filled in ink in a tiny, tightly drawn-out handwriting, with numerous erasures and corrections, corresponding to about two-thirds of the published version of the novel.
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