Marcel Proust (1871-1922) - photo 1
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) - photo 2
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) - photo 3
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) - photo 4
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) - photo 5

Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

Starting price
£ 100
Auction dateClassic
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 1108956
Lot 156 | Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
Autograph letter signed ('Marcel Proust') to Robert [de Billy], n.d. [1910]
In French. 5½ pages, 182 x 135mm, on bifolia. Provenance: Sotheby's, 16 May 1978, lot 356.

On his admiration for English and American writers, especially Thomas Hardy. Proust has just read Hardy's The Well-Beloved (whose French translation came out in 1909), describing it as 'a very fine thing which unfortunately resembles ever so slightly (but a thousand times better) what I am doing myself ...It is not even lacking the slight element of the grotesque which comes with great works'; de Billy is to ask [the British diplomat Sir Reginald] Lister about the personal character of Hardy and J.M. Barrie ('what kind of man are they, fashionable, lovers of women etc'), remarking on the curiosity of his own attachment to English and American literature: 'Germany, Italy, very often France leave me indifferent. But two pages of Mill on the Floss make me weep'; and this in spite of Ruskin's disapproval of Eliot. The letter also thanks de Billy for his kindness, mentioning Reynaldo Hahn, whose diffidence had made him hesitate to send de Billy a letter. He has been very ill, and is gradually recovering, but declines a proposed cruise to Spitzbergen ('C'est très froid n'est-ce pas? moins de 0 degré? D'ailleurs je n'ai aucun désir d'y aller')

Je viens de lire une très belle chose qui ressemble malheureusement un tout petit peu (en mille fois mieux) à ce que je fais: La Bien-Aimée de Thomas Hardy. Il n'y manque même pas la légère part de grotesque qui s'attache aux grandes œuvres. Quand vous causerez avec Lister, demandez-lui s'il connait Thomas Hardy et Barrie, quels hommes ce sont, mondains, amateurs de femmes etc. C'est curieux que dans tous les genres différents, de George Eliot a Hardy, de Stevenson a Emerson, il n'y a pas de littérature qui ait sur moi un pouvoir comparable à la littérature anglaise et américaine. L’Allemagne, l’Italie, bien souvent la France me laissent indifférent. Mais deux pages du Moulin sur la Floss me font pleurer.

Count Robert de Billy (1869-1953) had been a friend of Proust's from 1890, when they were both doing their military service; he had been posted as a diplomat to London in 1896-99, and was responsible for introducing Proust to the works of John Ruskin.
Artist:Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)
Place of origin:France
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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