Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Proust auction

Coming soon to the Paris Sotheby’s, the Marie-Claude Mante collection of Proustiana:

a major Proustian archive from the library of Proust’s grandniece: 60 lots of letters, books, presentation copies and literary manuscripts. In addition to an unpublished pastiche of Ruskin, galley proofs of À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, a first draft on the source of the river Loir (prelude to a famous part of Du Côté de chez Swann) and an original drawing, the collection includes a very significant collection of letters from Gaston Gallimard to Marcel Proust between 1912 to the author’s death in 1922.
Here’s a more detailed description of what’s for sale.

What I love about this kind of unattainable reality: there is a catalogue of it, in French, filled with photographs, free for the downloading. The Proust material begins on page 125. Thank you, auctioneers.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

comments: 4

Anonymous said...

Thank you for pointing to the auction. Some years ago I decided to read the all 7 volumes of In Remembrance of Things Past. It took a few years but I did so. Perhaps time to pick it up again. Here's an article on someone who read it in English and then in French: https://themillions.com/2010/07/reading-in-tongues.html He writes that Proust in French is so different from the English version with it being more edgy and humorous. Perhaps time to find it in French.

Kirsten

Michael Leddy said...

Thanks for the link, Kirsten. The Scott-Moncrieff translation and the more recent Penguin translations also differ greatly. Which did you read?

Anonymous said...

I read the Scott-Moncrief translations. I did see that my local bookstore has Swann's way in French which could be interesting.

My college French is so rusty!

Which translation have you read?

Kirsten

Michael Leddy said...

I’ve read the Penguins, by assorted translators, starting with Lydia Davis.