Search Results: Titles starting with L from Le Manuscrit Français

DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor (1821-1881)
Period albumen portrait by Vezenberg & CoSaint Petersburg [1879], cdv formatMounted on thin cardboard in the photorapher's creditSome superficial stains and flaws (see scan)
Very scarce portrait of the author of Crime and Punishment

This portrait, which has remained famous in the writer's iconography, shows Dostoevsky with a piercing gaze and a slight smile.
Good condition throughout.
Iconography:Album Dostoïevski, éd. G. Aucouturier et C. Menuet, Pléiade, p. 333, n°531

STEVENSON, Robert Louis (1850-1894)
Autograph letter signed " Robert Louis Stevenson " to Hubert Smith-StainerEdinburgh, [Pitlochry, 6th June 1881], 3 pp. in-8°With autograph envelope
Long and beautiful Stevenson letter, from his native lands, evoking his difficult camps in California and the Cevennes
" Dear Sir,I received only a few days ago your long and interesting letter.I shall make it a point to see your book. I have since camped out in California, where things are mightily simplified by the absence of rain, but made more difficult by the rivers drying up. I recal some miseries after water to drink; and tracking with a compass through thick chapparal and chemise, did not always prove either easy or agreeable. But I was laid down with a fever, and passed some very melancholy nights, when I could not close an eye and could not tell whether I most disliked the glitter of the stars or the piercing cry of the crickets; and to have to cook one's food became quite impossible. That fever was the… Read More

SADE, Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de (1740-1814)
Autograph letter signed "de Sade" to his aunt Gabrielle-Eléonore de Sade
N.p, 22nd April [1790], 3 pp. in-8vo
Long and powerful letter from the Marquis de Sade, just after his release from the hospice of Charenton. He shouts with rage the injustice done to him by his in-laws, these "monsters", and mourns the loss of his precious manuscripts – including The 120 Days of Sodom – during the storming of the Bastille the previous year.
"My room was searched and I lost everything... precious works, the fruit of fifteen years' work, I have saved nothing... and all this through the fault of those wretched rascals whom I hope God will one day avenge me"


" Je manquerais au plus cher et au plus sacré de mes devoirs, ma chère tante, si je ne vous informais pas que je viens d'obtenir enfin ma liberté ; il ne manquerait à mon bonheur que la satisfaction de pouvoir vous embrasser tout de suite et j'y volerai sans doute, si des affaires majeures ne… Read More

CELINE, Louis-Ferdinand (1894-1961)
Autograph letter signed twice, " Des " and " Louis ", then on letterhead " Destouches " , to his lawyer Thorvald Mikkelsen and his whife, Lucette Destouches
Københavns Fængsler's prison, 22nd August 1946, 2 pp. in-4°
Typographic annotation "132" at the top of the first page
Long prison letter, full of despair, between rage for his situation and tenderness for his wife


" Mon cher Maître, vous me voyez encore tout navré et repentant de vous avoir si fort indisposé par ma lettre absurde à propos de mon chat Bebert ! Vous metterez [sic] j'espère tout ceci sur le compte de la folie et aussi des heures longues de l'emprisonnement où certaines idées tout à fait grotesques s'emparent de l'esprit et puis de la plume… Quelle idiotie ! À mon âge ! Oubliez je vous en prie cette absurdité. Je demeure, avec raison alors je crois, tout à fait anxieux des suites de votre démarche auprès du Ministère. Quelle suite y ont donné ces messieurs ? Pensent-ils à… Read More

BOURDELLE, Antoine (1861-1929)
Autograph letter signed " Ant Bourdelle " [to André Fontainas]Paris, November 1928 [in reality 25th December], 4 pp. in-4°Some corrections and erasures by BourdelleOld repair of a tear with tape on the second folioSmall marginal lacks without affecting to the text
Long unpublished letter from the artist evoking his works and his career, on the sidelines of the largest retrospective dedicated to him during his lifetime, at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in BrusselsHe enriches his letter with an original drawing representing one of his busts of Beethoven
" Mon très cher et grand ami,J'ai lu d'un seul trait votre livre [Mes souvenirs du symbolisme, La Nouvelle revue critique, 1928] qui est capital. J'ai connu la plupart des poètes.J'ai parlé à Verlaine une fois.[Bourdelle donne ensuite son avis sur les poètes contemporains et récemment disparus]Mon cher ami – Je crois que vous serez heureux de ne conclure votre conférence à propos de mon oeuvre à Bruxelles – le… Read More

PIAF, Édith (1915-1963)
Contract signed " Édit Piaf " and " Bruno Coquatrix "Paris, 29th February 1956, 1 p. 1/2 in-4°Initialled " B. C. " by Coquatrix on first pageSome tiny stains, small missing bits on folds without affecting the text
The legendary original contract signed between Édith Piaf and Bruno Coquatrix for the three weeks show at the Olympia in 1956
This is the singer's second season in the famous theater directed by Bruno Coquatrix. She performed three more series of dates, in 1958, 1961 and 1962, and although exhausted, saved the Olympia from bankruptcy.
It was with Piaf that the myth of the Olympia took shape in the mid-1950sHer image has thus become inseparable from the Parisian theater.
The present contract includes the outstanding conditions granted to the singer, then at the height of her career, for her performances at the 1956 Olympia. We can see that she benefits from a fee of 300,000 francs per day (a considerable sum for the time) for a period of three weeks.In addition to… Read More

HUGO, Victor (1802-1855)
Autograph letter to Alphonsine Masson[Marine Terrace, Jersey], 5th August [1855], 4 pp. small in-12°With autograph envelope[Postmark:] ANGL –5 Augt [departure] / CHEVREUSE 99th Août [arrival]Fine condition throughout
A long, unpublished letter with mystical overtones addressed to his psychic friend Alphonsine Masson, through which Victor Hugo addresses a message to his former love, Léonie Biard – The exiled poet expresses, in the manner of a prose poem and like a waking dream, the power of loving memory for the woman he was forced to leave behind during the coup d'Etat of December 2, 1851

We transcribe here only a few fragments
" Comme toutes les femmes de cœur et d'esprit, vous avez, Madame, outre toutes vos grâces personnelles, des hasards profonds et éloquents. Avec ce mot : elle partie, c'est ma lumière disparue, vous avez remué en moi tout un monde sombre et charmant, vous m'avez fait revivre et mourir, vous avez fait monter jusqu'au bord de ma paupière tout… Read More