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Ursus Books981 Madison AvenueNew York, NY 10021(212) 772-8787www.ursusbooks.comProust, Marcel. A lâombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. Eighteen holograph manuscript fragments, various sizes and shapes, mounted on heavy paper, showing traces of folding, âCahier violet/No. 11â written in large script in blue ink in upper left corner (âNo. 11â written directly over one of the ms. fragments), framed and glazed (frame window 47 x 58 cm). [Paris, before 1918].One of the few remaining groups of manuscript fragments in private hands, and possibly the only one to include substantial unpublished passages, from A la recherche du temps perdu, Proustâs vast and unclassifiable masterpiece, one of the great works of Western literature. The fragments formed part of Proustâs manuscript draft for A lâombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, the second novel in the seven-novel cycle, published in 1918 by the Nouvelle Revue Française. The present fragments were unavailable to the editors of the BibliothĂšque de la PlĂ©iade edition (1954), the most painstakingly accurate edition of Proustâs magnum opus, and are substantially unpublished.The vast majority of the surviving manuscripts and galley proofs for Remembrance of Things Past are in the collections of the BibliothĂšque Nationale de France and a few other French institutions, the BNF having acquired Proustâs literary archive from Proustâs niece Suzy Mante-Proust in 1962. Only a few papers were separated from the main archive (one such group of corrected galley proofs, for the first volume, Du cĂŽtĂ© de chez Swann, appeared at auction in 2000, where it fetched a record price for a French literary manuscript). The present manuscript fragments were removed from Proustâs literary possessions in 1919 or 1920, under the following circumstances: The first volume of the work, Du cĂŽtĂ© de chez Swann, was published in 1913 by Bernard Grasset at Proustâs expense, after it was turned down by various publishers, includingâon the advice of AndrĂ© GideâGaston Gallimardâs Nouvelle Revue Française (N.R.F.). World War I intervened before Proust was ready to publish the next volume, promised by contract to Grasset. In 1916 a repentant Gide approached Proust proposing that he move to the N.R.F. Thus in 1917 Gallimard acquired the rights to the remainder of the novel cycle and to the approximately 600 unsold copies of Swannâs Way. In 1918 the N.R.F. published the first edition of A lâombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. Proust continued, in his usual fashion, to revise, and in 1920 the same publishers issued a special, corrected and revised limited edition of this second novel, printed in 50 copies on grand papier, with a frontispiece portrait of Proust, and with the addition to each copy of two to four sheets from the copy-text, a bewildering combination of manuscript fragments and of printed galleys, as described by AndrĂ© FerrĂ© in his preface to the PlĂ©iade edition: âWhat Proust called his âmanuscriptâ for the Jeunes filles is a strange mosaic in which long autograph fragments alternate with galley proofs, corrected and uncorrected, some from Grasset (1914), others from the N.R.F. [edition]; the whole thing was in any case taken apart in order to âtrufferâ [extra-illustrate] each of the 50 copies of the folio edition. We were only able to locate approximately one fourth of these copies*â (p. xxvi, our translation; the number was actually considerably less than one fourth, see below).Not surprisingly, given the copy-texts the compositors had to work with, the printing of Proustâs texts was a nightmare, and none of the published editions is entirely accurate. By 1920 Proust was more or less uninvolved in the final proofing of the novel (cf. PlĂ©iade edition, I, p. xxiv), and, notwithstanding their intention to correct the faults of the earlier edition, the often egregious interventions of the N.R.F. editors made the edition as unreliable as its predecessor. The editors of the PlĂ©iade edition were only able to examine 12 of the 100 or so sheets bound into the 1920 edition (see p. 965). The present sheet, entirely manuscript, was not among them.The authors of the BibliothĂšque Nationale 1965 exhibition catalogue on Proust remark that Proustâs notebooks are remarkable for being filled with countless small cut-out slips of paper or âpaperolesâ upon which the author continually scribbled revisions of his text (BN, Marcel Proust, no. 371). Several such âpaperolesâ are included here, as well as a few longer portions of manuscript pages. The backing on which the fragments are pasted was originally folded several times to fit a quarto volume of the 1920 edition. Designated by the editors no. 11, this sheet was originally preserved in copy number XXVIII of the 1920 edition, along with another group of manuscript fragments and two corrected galley proofs from the same notebook, designated âcahier violet nos. 19, 23, and 24.âThe assemblage with its deletions, interlinear additions, and larger insertions on cut-out strips or pieces of paper, vividly displays Proustâs typical working method: âThe mass of [his] modifications consist of additions. Proust was singularly careful to preserve his thoughts, and every written fragment was carefully kept ... For Marcel Proust, revising signified completing or filling out⊠Proust inserts his additions as one would insert a wedge into a crack, separating, so to speak, the walls of the paragraphâŠâ (A. Feuillerat, Comment Marcel Proust a composĂ© son roman, 1934, pp. 108-109). The editors of the PlĂ©iade describe the typical appearance of the proofs: âProustâs additions covered the margins of the proofs, and overflowed onto blank pages, which were pasted onto the galleys and ended up forming endless strips⊠The printer naturally had more and more trouble making head or tail of these scribbles and inextricable insertions; the errors passed from proof to proof, each time augmented with new errors - until the day when the editor, horrifed by this endless amplification of mistakes, took upon himself the authority to declare the âbon Ă tirerâ â (p. xxv).Mounted on card, these fragments, originating in several different drafts, additions, and rewritings, constitute a variant on a single passage in the published novel (cf. Volume III, pp. 829-831 of the PlĂ©iade edition, 1954), during the period immediately following the narratorâs first glimpse of the group of girls on the beach in Balbec, and describing the beginnings of his longings to meet them (longings which will eventually narrow to an obsessional love for one of the girls, Albertine). One of the longest unpublished passages, approximately 300 words, is a typically Proustian reflection on desire and the mystery of unknown faces and beings.This is one of the most significant manuscript fragments of Proustâs masterpiece remaining in private hands.Provenance: Jacques GuĂ©rin (sale, Paris, 4 June 1986, part lot 108) â Pierre BerĂšs, sale, Paris Part III, 16 December, 2005, lot 386.$125,000
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