CÉLINE Louis-Ferdinand (1894 - 1961)

Lot 16
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4000 - 5000 EUR
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Result : 2 857EUR
CÉLINE Louis-Ferdinand (1894 - 1961)
18 L.A.S. (mostly initials or initials) and 1 P.A., [Copenhagen Rigshospital] Feb. 28-June 15, 1947, to Thorvald MIKKELSEN; 40 pages in-4 or in-fol. (small flaws to qs letters). Letters to his Danish lawyer during his stay for convalescence at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen (Céline will remain there until his release in June). We refer (LP) to the edition of Letters from prison (Gallimard, 1998). Rigshospital Friday [February 28] (LP206). ... Still staggering between Horror and Joy", he is finally in the Hospital, "this Paradise! I could not dream of being better. Here is internment!"... Saturday [March 8] (LP208). He is going to celebrate SEIDENFADEN (director of the police of Copenhagen): "It is rare that the police protect the muses - and especially the muses in such abominable shit! [He evokes the letter received from Lucien DESCAVES "who does not want to die before seeing me again and kissing me"... He recommends that when he goes to Paris he meet DARAGNÈS...He proposes to exchange one of the apartments that his mother-in-law owns in Nice for an apartment in Copenhagen. Wednesday [March] (LP209). He asks Mikkelsen to intervene with RAYNAUD (press attaché at the Legation) and with the bishop of Copenhagen so that he gives him asylum. On Thursday (LP210), he is alarmed by an article in a Danish newspaper, which finds him "Nazi", and wonders if it is not the forerunner of a campaign to have him expelled. He would like to obtain explanations for Raynaud's accusations, who hides behind his diplomatic functions and avoids any confrontation. He owes me proof or an apology"... Thursday [March] (LP211). He asks for the address of his lawyer CORNELL in New York. "I am thinking more and more of Greenland. It seems to me after all the best solution"...Plus the autograph draft of an Answer to Knopf: Céline would like, after having broken his contracts with various American publishers, to entrust to KNOPF the edition of his books published in English by Little Brown (Journey to the End of the Night and Death on Installation Plan) as well as "the English edition of Guignol's Band I already published in France by Denoël in 1943 with great success, and the exclusivity of the book on which he is working at the moment, having to do with the "novelized" adventure of the years of exile and persecution of the "collaborators""... March 24 (LP213). He found an argument to be considered as a political refugee in Denmark: "MONTHERLANT collaborated infinitely more than I did. Nobody will deny it? This case and the one of CHAUTEMPS in another genre free the Danes from any legal scruples"... Monday (LP214). "Here is a series of articles from Le Monde in the form of a "pro domo" plea of the Epuration jurisprudence"... This Saturday [March] (LP215). He will visit her as soon as his wife is released from the Rigshospital where she is being treated. "Camille Chautemps is to be tried in Paris in absentia. The United States refused to extradite him. This is an example, I believe, of how to oppose the demands that concern me"...He entered into relations with the Danish clergy... Saturday earlier (LP216). Dedichen found him an apartment: "God is beginning to listen to me. It is time for me to get closer to the priests. Like Joan of Arc I begin to hear voices"... Tuesday (LP217). His wife will come for his defense, so that he can correct it and have it mimeographed. He got lost on his way back from lunch with Mikkelsen: "Drunkenness and freedom, finally a little kind of freedom"... Thursday (LP218). His defense is perfected, and he asks that it be mimeographed in 50 copies: "That would advance my battle plans"... Thursday (LP219). He thanks him for the "mimeographs" and returns to his quarrel with Raynaud... If he left France, "it is because there were a lot of Raynauds in the French maquis and in London and at the BBC, who accused me with the same unbelievable nerve [...] Destroy this individual! I am jealous of him, I hate him, he has a dirty face, of course he is a traitor! Not more difficult than that! It would be a rare treat to have this asshole in front of you, to see him quibble, stammer, shit his pants, and face him! On Thursday (LP220), he doesn't want to receive visits, especially from his Danish "friends": "Enough of these sinister remarks, these veiled hatreds disguised as concern! It was necessary to support them. But now just heaven to the doghouse these bitches! (Between us!)"... 25.5 (LP221). About money, and exchange rates between France and Denmark... An autograph list of Parisian friends, with addresses (Marie Canavaggia, Daragnès, Geoffroy, Me Naud, etc.) is attached. The 3rd [June] (LP222). Mikkelsen is in France, and Céline hopes that he has been able to see the "Cromagnons" (his friends in Montmartre) and advises him to go to the Choise passage
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