GEORGES BATAILLE Lot n° 44

15 autograph letters signed to Henri Parisot. 27 pp. in-8 and in-4. Vézelay, June 1945 - May 1946. About his life in Vézelay and his literary productions, in particular Dirty, (published by Parisot in the collection L'Âge d'or), the Orestie, the Method of Meditation, etc. He evokes in passing the work of some of his friends: Hans Bellmer, Balthus, André Masson. "I got a note from Fred Backer telling me that Bellmer was finally doing the Witch. That's nice. My preface is a little late, but it's started and will be finished any day now. Did you pick up the manuscript of Histoire de rats from Blaizot? Another thing: did you talk to Balthus about the illustration of Le Mort, if you have seen it? [...]. I didn't know that your collection would be called the Golden Age. The title was also chosen by Francis Dumont for a series of notebooks to be published by Calmann-Lévy [...]. What about Chatté. A letter from Paulhan tells me that he would be converted. Less astonished than horrified... What will happen, in this case, to The Tomb and the Dead? [...] I am in complete agreement about the proofs of the Oresteia, which, by the way, are about as bad as it gets.... I will soon send you the complete Method of Meditation. I am working on it, but it takes more time than I thought [...]. Sending Max-Pol Fouchet the Method of Meditation (which I had to revise), I attached Dirty, for the Golden Age. The manuscript bears your name. I like this story very much, and although it may be judged as not very poetic (perhaps wrongly), I believe that it takes its place as much as any other of my writings in this broad surrealism of which you speak (I have the most precise idea on this) [...]. I take the liberty of sending you, for your personal collection, the manuscript of those poems of the Oresteia which date from October-November 42. I have almost never written poems. Those of the Interior Experience date from February 42. Those of On Nietzsche of January 43. Those of the Orestie (with the exception of these) and of the Roof of the Temple (February or March 43), those (or the one) of the Guilty, those of the Archangelical from June to December 43 [...]". He lists the dates of writing of his various poems, discusses the issues of printing and publishing of The Alleluia (which will be published in 1947 by Blaizot). "I'm glad you got along well with Masson. I have heard that he was besieged with very important proposals. It is quite natural: I do not see anyone today who can make such beautiful books as he does. His intellectual and graphic gifts coincide: on the one hand, linking his drawings to an intention marked by words makes sense for him (when for others it is pure juxtaposition); on the other hand, I imagine that his drawing work will be remembered in the foreground. Don't forget the pastels he did which show the possible richness of color illustrations [...]. Here are the proofs of Dirty. I hope not to have as much trouble with them as with the Oresteia [...]. I regret that the Method in Fontaine is not published in the collection that you direct. I would so much like this text to appear quickly. I am wrong about the 3rd convoy, not because it is very badly done (it is almost unbearable) but because these few pages express the profound necessity. Too bad, you may say, for the unfortunate woman. She could find better interpretations. However the text of Maquet seems to me at the same time judicious, of a measured violence being able to satisfy the most difficult [...]. I don't know if you still go sometimes to Molko's and if you have seen the Orestie they made. Wrapped in a kind of toothpaste wrapping paper such as one cannot imagine anything uglier, more pretentious, more comical. Perfectly unsellable [...]".