COCTEAU Jean (1889-1963)

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Lot n° 357
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COCTEAU Jean (1889-1963)
[Le Prince frivole] Les Chansons du Petit Prince en exil, autograph manuscript signed Jean Cocteau, [1909]; 86 leaves in-4 or in-folio, mounted on tabs in an in-folio volume, contemporary ivory vellum binding with flaps, spine decorated in the grotesque style (small accident at one corner, tear at bottom right without aff ectation of text on leaf 18). Complete autograph manuscript of Cocteau's second collection, Le Prince frivole. Second book by Jean Cocteau, Le Prince Frivole was published in 1910 at Mercure de France. The manuscript was composed in Maisons-Laffi tte during the summer of 1909, then in Arnaga in the Basque country, where Cocteau stayed with the Rostands. It is written in black ink, in Cocteau's round and curly handwriting at the time, mainly on hardback in-4 sheets, or folio sheets. It shows erasures and corrections, as well as variants with the final text; the title, Les Chansons du Petit Prince en exil, is inscribed on the yellow cardboard cover. A few poems have not been retained for the edition. It includes the following 73 pieces, in a different order from the collection, in five sections: [Les Chansons du prince frivole :] Rondel nostalgique, Le bonheur inouï [published in a different version under the title L'invisible couronne], Viol [L'Intrus], Réponse tardive, Toute une époque, Les statues, Snobisme, Rondel du salon rose [La lettre du salon rose], La tour et les comparaisons, Rondel du petit garçon, Rondel of the calm young man, Rondel of the gentleman of a certain age, The lady of the obscure salon, The little neurasthenic lord, Discordances, Rondel of the embarrassed sultana, Taine's book, Project [with drawing of a room], Rondel of the last Faune, For a lady after the "Mumm" [signed JC, On the album of a lady who had been drinking], August, The sonnet of the four names, Sonnet of the roses, Letter from the young fi lle of the provinces to the young fi lle of Paris, The naked god [signed JC], The night leaves a park, At the window, Seine and Oise, Soir inutile et sympathique, Le rondel de la langue [on the back, Le géant chapeau bleu, 1st version biff ée], Le gardénia, Rondel de l'énorme chapeau, L'air des sept princes, Rondel des deux éléphants, La promenade [signed JC], Les parfums japonais, Mr W.H., Le sommeil du jardin [signed JC], Souvenir, Chambre d'ami, Quinzième prélude [Chopin's fifteenth prelude], La reine dissoute, La Sultane au jardin, Le spectre "en souvenir de Catulle Mendès", Lettre, Ma mère, Le retour [L'ami], Babel, La chanson, les lys et l'amour. Versailles of which so much was said. [Le vieux parc dont on a tant dit in l'édition : (les 7 premiers sonnets sur papier gris au chiff re argenté J.C)] "Versailles dont on a tant dit"... [Sonnet pontificating], L'enfant aux genoux d'or, Les criminels probables, Le jeune homme aux grenouilles, Fait divers, La vierge aux héliotropes, L'éternelle palissade, Les moribonds. Les Chansons du petit prince [The little prince in exile in the edition:] Le petit prince arrive, Le petit prince à l'hôtel, Le petit prince en auto. A dialogue and two letters. Battis to Hermas, Hermas to Battis, Acis to Neere, Neere to Acis. The eight sonnets from the Hôtel Biron [these eight sonnets do not bear dedication titles in the edition:] For my friends, For Marcel Cruppi, For Reynaldo Hahn, For Pierre Mortier, For Francis de Croisset, For Abel Bonnard, For Count Robert de Montesquieu Fezensac, For Auguste Rodin, Enfi n, for Her [1st title crossed out For Madame X]. There follow six poems that do not appear in the collection: Eugène et le trombone (in 8 verses, preceded by this signed dedication: "Puisque son coeur s'émeut aux exemples touchants / J'off re à Reynaldo Hahn ce poème en huit chants", and 2 drawings representing Eugène); L'inébranlable cantatrice (signed, published in Comoedia of September 20, 1909, with this dispatch to Pierre Mortier: "Dear, dear Pierre, here is a little machine that is not topical because it is eternal and that I am sending you for Comoedia because I like it very much. Jean"); Les critiques ou l'erreur possible (signed); Les mauvais bohèmes; Le chien Japonais; Rondel du typographe (signed, and preceded by 2 notes in verse to Pierre Mortier about typographers' typos). Eni n, a L.A.S. "Jean", where Cocteau asks Pierre Mortier, "as a unique service", to correct the proofs with his hand to avoid the typographers' mistakes. A copy of Pierre MORTIER (1882-1946), dedicatee of one of the poems, with his initials on the back of the binding Pierre Mortier was a contributor to Comoedia, where several of these poems were published. He was the director of the daily newspaper Gil Blas. The manuscript of Le Prince frivole was considered lost: "The original manuscript in Cocteau's hand is missing" (OEuvres poétiques complètes, Bibl. de la Pléiade, p. 1842). While Marcel Proust hailed the author of Prince Frivole as a "Banville of life", Cocteau's work is not yet available.
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