Anatole France already said that life was too short to have time to read "In Search of Lost Time".
We learn that the work of Marcel Proust is even more important: Gallimard editions publish this Thursday an unpublished text by the author.
It was the Grail of the Proustians, and almost a legend.
A book written in 1908, before
In Search of Lost Time
, but never published is now available in bookstores under the title
75 feuillet and other unpublished manuscripts
at Gallimard.
"These '75 leaves' give access to the primitive Proustian crypt," even warns the publisher.
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Preparations for the "Search for Lost Time"
The publisher and collector Bernard de Fallois had already mentioned their existence without saying more.
Died in 2018, he bequeathed the famous manuscripts to the National Library of France (BNF).
This is where these forgotten treasures were found and then edited.
It is indeed an important text: these pages are in fact the preparations for the writing of the
Recherche du temps loss
.
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Nathalie Mauriac, the great-granddaughter of Robert Proust, brother of the novelist, supervised the edition.
Last year, the editions of Fallois had already published an unpublished one:
the Mysterious correspondent and other news
.
2021 marks the writer's 150th birthday and the BNF is planning a major exhibition for the centenary of his death in 2022. Until then, perhaps we will still be entitled to an unpublished text.