COCTEAU Jean

Lot 104
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800 - 1000 EUR
COCTEAU Jean
Autograph MANUSCRIT,[Manon, 1947]; 2 pages in-4 very full of a small handwriting, with erasures and corrections. Draft for the preface to Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost. [This preface was written for a reprint of the novel by Stock in 1947; it appeared in the Revue de Paris in October 19417. The last four paragraphs are missing from this manuscript.] "It is not a question of talking about an illustrious book that needs no commentary, but of shedding light on some of its angles, which we try to round up or leave in the shadows to reconcile the glory of French letters with a detestable habit of deploring the living. Father Prévost can only be compared to Petron. Its atmosphere is that of Satyricon, reserved for the admirable warmth of love that Manon radiates like a wide open rose in a half-open bodice. But what a torchlight procession of players, cheats, drinkers, debauchers, police raids! It is this disgusting scent of farrier powder, wine on the tablecloth and an unmade bed that gives Manon the strength to live through the centuries and not to be confused with other figures whose flies and smiles are not enough for me. Manon's greatness, what saves her from being, like Les Liaisons dangereuses, the masterpiece of second-class books, what makes her a masterpiece at all, is the Parisian gust that rolls this amazing story from a seminar room to the grave that Des Grieux digs, in French Guyana, with his own hands. It is love that does not mix with the scoundrel and covers the characters with this coating of swan feathers, a coating by which the swan splashes in dirty water without getting dirty".... Etc.
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