LOUYS Pierre (1870-1925)

Lot 416
Go to lot
Estimation :
1500 - 2000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 3 031EUR
LOUYS Pierre (1870-1925)
Collection of 40 autograph letters. 1884-1917. Approximately 170 p. in-12 (including 2 pneumatic cards and 3 smaller cards) and 3 p. in-8, on different papers, some envelopes preserved. Beautiful collection of letters from Pierre Louÿs (some signed "Pierrot") to his brother (36 letters) or his father (4 letters). The correspondence is divided into two periods: letters from youth, from 1884 to 1889, then from 1896 to 1917. -To his brother, about a trip to Europe they are to make together: "I would like to go where there are no lorgnette salesmen, where there are no funicular ascents and where there is no English hotel with gas spouts at the top of the mountains." He describes to her in detail his activities, including his reading: "I started Salammbô last night. I don't want to tell you about it until I've finished. So far I find it delightful"; "I am reading Anna Karenina. Admirable, admirable. I've read the ball scene." He gives her news of the various members of the family and confides to her, in a 20-page letter about his stay in Limé (September 1888): "I have great news to tell you, which will decide the happiness of my life: I am getting married." (This marriage will not take place.) One letter is adorned with an ink drawing of Lake Longemer. -With his father, it is a recurring concern for his health that he shares, but above all his school results and his anxiety about the bachot, and examinations in general. Later, he confides to his brother his state of mind, his difficulties in living and in making choices: "Because I don't know how to live, or if you like better, because I'm not interested, and others interest me even less. [...] For eleven years now I have felt tenderness building up in me for someone who never comes. During these eleven years, I have loved four women: one, after I left her; another, after I knew she was dead; and two others I never had." And of course his writing: "My plans for this winter are to finish the Sévillane [la Femme et le pantin?] by the end of December, to write a libretto for Debussy [...], a play (le Serment) [...] and the 'great modern novel'." Political or scientific events also play an important part in this correspondence. Thus, Louÿs evokes the visit of Thomas Edison in Paris (1911 ?), where he foresees the crucial role of airplanes in future wars. Throughout these letters, one can read Pierre Louÿs' attachment to his brother: "Kiss me or drive me away. And then it's monstrous to have told me that I didn't love you." When Georges Louis has just turned 60, Louÿs notes that "it will soon be twenty-five years since you began to be to me what few fathers are to their children." And, toward the end: "the day you are no more, I will be as little as you are yourself." Attached to this set is a note about his mother: "For all her library, she had only a shelf invaded by Victor Hugo." A weakened letter with small tears and restorations, minor scattered flaws to other documents.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue