Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) - photo 1
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) - photo 2
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) - photo 3

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

Lot 96
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1108895
Lot 96 | Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 12 000
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
Autograph letter (signed 'ton MonSTRE') to [Louise Colet], [Croisset], 'Vendredi soir minuit', [7 April 1854]
In French. Four pages, 247 x 192mm, bifolium, partially dated in pencil in another hand on p.1. Provenance: Sotheby's, 5 December 1991, lot 452.

'Il faudrait tout connaître pour écrire. Tous tant que nous sommes, écrivassiers, nous avons une ignorance monstrueuse ... Il faut que les phrases s’agitent dans un livre comme les feuilles dans une forêt, toutes dissemblables en leur ressemblance'. An extraordinary letter on the composition of Madame Bovary and his literary method.

The letter opens with a famous passage on Flaubert's progress on his great novel: he has just made a clean copy of his work since the New Year: this new work amounts to 13 pages: '13 pages in 7 weeks! Still, they are finished, I think, and as perfect as I can make them. I only have two or three repetitions of the same word to remove ... It was a hard passage: I needed to bear the reader insensibly from psychology to action, without him noticing. I shall now enter on the dramatic and eventful part'. Flaubert has spent the whole evening reading up on surgery, especially on club feet, exclaiming on the necessity of deep research for a writer – 'to write, one must know everything'. And yet he reflects that the chief purpose of learning is to achieve a 'rich and varied vocabulary. The phrases in a book should toss about like leaves in a forest, all unalike in their resemblance'. Flaubert goes on to enquire after Louise's health, as she is suffering from a mysterious ailment, advising her to be suspicious of doctors ('On vous tue parfaitement, si on ne vous guérit pas'). He pays a moderate tribute to Alfred de Vigny, remembering his old enthusiasm for Chatterton, and writes of the public's need for 'two moral books, one on literature and one on sociability', though he cannot start work on them himself for three years – he needs to purge himself of critical ideas in order to turn 'comfortably and at length to the two or three great works which I have been carrying in my belly for a long time'. After an acid passage on Leconte de Lisle, accusing him of being essentially a salon artist ('J’ai reconnu là un poseur taciturne'), the letter concludes with a smutty remark at the expense of his friend Louis Bouilhet.

Je viens de recopier au net tout ce que j’ai fait depuis le jour de l’an, ou p[ou]r mieux dire depuis le milieu de février, puisqu’à mon retour de Paris j’ai tout brûlé. Cela fait 13 pages, ni plus ni moins. 13 pages en 7 semaines ! enfin, elles sont faites je crois, et aussi parfaites qu’il m’est possible. Je n’ai plus que deux ou trois répétitions du même mot à enlever et deux coupes trop pareilles à casser. – Voilà enfin q[uel]que chose de fini. C’était un dur passage : il fallait amener insensiblement le lecteur de la psychologie à l’action, sans qu’il s’en aperçoive. Je vais entrer maintenant dans la partie dramatique & mouvementée. – encore deux ou trois g[ran]ds mouvemens [sic] et j’apercevrai la fin. – Au mois de juillet ou d’août, j’espère entamer le dénouement. Que de mal j’aurai eu, mon Dieu ! que de mal ! que d’échignements et de découragements !

J’ai hier passé toute ma soirée à me livrer à une chirurgie furieuse. J’étudie la théorie des Pieds-bots. J’ai dévoré en trois heures tout un volume de cette intéressante littérature & pris des notes. Il y avait là de bien belles phrases : « Le sein de la mère est un sanctuaire impénétrable & mystérieux où », etc – belle étude, du reste ! que ne suis-je jeune ! Comme je travaillerais ! il faudrait tout connaître pour écrire. tous tant que nous sommes, écrivassiers, nous avons une ignorance monstrueuse, – et p[ou]rtant comme tout cela fournirait des idées, des comparaisons ! La moelle nous manque, généralement ! Les livres d’où ont découlé les littératures entières, comme Homère, Rabelais ... sont des encyclopédies de leur époque. – ils savaient tout ces bonnes gens-là ; & nous, nous ne savons rien. – il y a dans la Poétique de Ronsard un curieux précepte : il recommande au poète de s’instruire dans les arts & métiers, forgerons, orfèvres, serruriers, etc. p[ou]r y puiser des métaphores ... c’est là ce qui vous fait, en effet, une langue riche et variée. il faut que les phrases s’agitent dans un livre comme les feuilles dans une forêt, toutes dissemblables en leur ressemblance.

Flaubert had begun work on Madame Bovary in 1851: he was not to complete the novel until March 1856, with the complete manuscript drafts comprising some 4,000 pages. The letter is published (no.466 in the Édition Conard, with one sentence censured). Note that the autograph envelope described in the Sotheby's 1991 catalogue is no longer present.
Artist:Gustave Flaubert (1821 - 1880)
Place of origin:France
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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