DAUDET Alphonse (1840-1897). Lot n° 42

Autograph MANUSCRIT, Jack, [1875]; 189 leaves (ca. 50 x 12 cm) written on the front (some fraying and small tears), mounted on tabs on wove paper leaves bound in a large in-fol. half morocco, case (damaged) (Alix). Spectacular manuscript of one of Daudet's most important novels, Jack. Jack, mœurs contemporaines appeared in serial form in Le Moniteur universel from June 1875, and in 2 volumes at E. Dentu on February 9, 1876 with this dedication to Flaubert : " This book of pity, anger and irony is dedicated to Gustave Flaubert my friend and my master ". Begun before the summer of 1874 (Daudet abandoned Le Nababab, on which he had begun to work), nourished by excursions to Brittany, written at the Lamoignon Hotel and at Champrosay, it was completed - even though publication had begun - towards the end of October 1875: "It took me nearly a year to write it; it is by far the longest and the fastest of all my books" (see the chapter on Jack in Thirty Years of Paris). Daudet was inspired for this "cruel book, bitter book, gloomy book" by the lamentable story of Raoul Dubief, a young boy he had known in 1868, who died at the age of twenty in the hospital after a life of misery, abandoned by his mother, a Parisian cocotte and mistress of a man of letters. In the center of the novel, when Jack became a worker in Indret, one can read one of the first paintings, quite seizing, of the industrial world and the machines; as well as a very alive evocation of the people of the Parisian suburbs. Surprising manuscript by its presentation. "The manuscript is doubly curious, on a great length of a thick, grainy paper, wide at most of twelve centimeters, a kind of endless papyrus folded on itself, then another copy all in the hand of Mrs. Daudet, big volume sewn with a thick thread which holds the pages" (Lucien Daudet, Life of Alphonse Daudet). They are indeed long and narrow strips of a rather roughly cut beige paper, entirely filled without the slightest margin with a small and very tight writing. Three large sheets (of a thicker and grainy paper) have been attached to it, which have remained blank, except for one on which Daudet has written these few notes: "It seems to me that I would be happy to write my new book on this rough paper which stops the pen, obliges it not to go faster than the thought. - This first chapter should show the child being taken by his mother to two or three institutions that do not want him because of her. - The child is not admitted to the fathers. - admitted to the fathers". Manuscript of first draft, abundantly crossed out and corrected, and very different from the published text. Daudet has sometimes considerably reworked his text. There are numerous and often very important deletions; long passages are crossed out; episodes are deleted or transformed, others have been added. Numerous additions are made by Daudet in the line spaces of the manuscript. He also notes remarks for the finalization of the text, for changes to be made, developments or dialogues to be made (we will give some examples). One also notes on the verso of several sheets of abandoned drafting. The manuscript is divided into three books (three parts in the edition). [First book] paginated from 6 to 80 (the first 5 pages are missing, corresponding to the beginning of chap. I, The mother and the child). II Le Gymnase Moronval (there are 2 p. 18, one being a long addition making the history of Moronval). [III Grandeur and decadence of the little king Madou-Ghézo] (lacks p. 20 which begins this chapter). IV A literary session at the Moronval Gymnasium. V Continuation of a reading at the Gymnase Moronval (three more scratched out; on f. 40, Daudet had fun drawing some of his characters: Dargenton, Madou Ghezo, Mme de Barancy, Jack, and a Chinese duck, an elephant, a kangaroo). VI The little king (at the end of the chapter, he notes: "To give comedy to this end... The 3 corps of troops. Moronval and the failures in head. The small hot countries then Jack. - Small hot countries scattered, stopping at the fronts of pastry shops! Let's go ! - And all to each other: Come on!"). VII The flight [became: Night walk through the countryside]. VIII Parva domus magna quies (note: "To put dialogue if possible in the scenes of the life of two"; abandoned beginning of this chap. on the back of f. 56). IX First appearance of Belisarius. X Life is not a novel!... [this chapter has been divided in two in the edition, chap. X entitled Cécile and XI keeping this title]. book two. l'aPPrentissage, paginated from 1 to 53. I Indret (note: "The defect of this chapter is that it lacks dialogue at Roudic. I have also very badly rendered the kind of contemptuous indifference of all these hard-working men for the apprentice Gringalet, and his endomestication"). II L