Pastiches et Mélanges
“His work manages to make itself heard as a unique, incomparable voice. Proust, the greatest novelist of his time, could just as easily be considered its greatest critic”.
First edition.
A very fine copy printed on large paper with covers preserved, in an elegant binding by Maylander.
4°, red morocco, gilt fillet, decorated ribbed spine, covers. Maylander.
210 x 163 mm.
Proust, Marcel. Pastiches et Mélanges.
Paris, Gallimard, Nrf, 1919.
First edition.
On of the first 70 numbered copies printed on Lafuma de Voiron in the in-4 tellière size.
It bears number 17.
In Pastiches, « L'Affaire Lemoine » recounts the twists and turns of a scandal that made headlines: Marcel Proust humorously describes how an engineer who manufactured fake diamonds managed to swindle the president of the world’s largest diamond company, De Beers.
In “Mélanges,” Proust expresses his admiration for the writer John Ruskin by extolling the riches of the Gothic style (“In Memory of the Murdered Churches, John Ruskin”). “Journées de lecture” reveals a different perspective from that of the English aesthete regarding his conception of reading: Proust demonstrates that this activity leads to a search for one’s true self. “The Death of Cathedrals” reveals the author’s concern over the deterioration of artistic heritage following the separation of church and state. “Filial Feelings of a Parricide” gives Proust the opportunity to examine the testimony of a schizophrenic murderer.
“Proust wrote several brilliant articles on Goethe, Jules Renard, George Eliot, and Chateaubriand. Some of these, collected in “Pastiches et Mélanges”, explore the Lemoine Affair—a fictional police case treated in the style of Balzac, Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, Saint-Simon, the Goncourts, Regnier, Faguet, and Renan—to appreciate how Proust exorcises his literary fascinations through imitation (the “pastiche”). Through this healthy form of therapy, the novelist acknowledges that he is a former critic who knows how to let go of his past. Thus, his work succeeds in making itself heard as a unique and incomparable voice. Through all these approaches, Proust—the greatest novelist of his time—could just as easily be considered its greatest critic” (Bernard Raffalli).
A very fin copy on large paper with covers, in an elegant binding by Maylander.
From the H. Heilbronn’s library, with ex-libris ; Château de Tournay.
