Manuscript from "L’Invitée"
Gallimard, 1937-1941. L’Invitée was an autobiographical novel, begun in the fall of 1937 (first called Légitime Défense), finished in the summer of 1941, and focused on Jean–Paul Sartre and Beauvoir’s lifelong taste for extended couples, the small, very intimate groups they formed with their friends, leading to cross–sexual relationships that were often difficult for Beauvoir to bear. The book allowed Beauvoir to put herself on stage and transcribe in literary terms the feelings of jealousy that Sartre’s relationship with Olga Kosakiewicz inspired in her. It was Sartre who gave the L’Invitée typescript to Gallimard for publication, but on the advice of Brice Parrain and Sartre, our first 2 chapters were deleted, and the novel was published in August 1943, with great success, and the birth of Simone de Beauvoir as a writer and as a towering feminist. These 2 rejected chapters were found, passed on, and finally published in 1979 in Les Écrits de Simone de Beauvoir by Claude Francis and Fernande Gontier, and our typescript was used as the setting copy to compose that edition. [with] A letter (July 18, 1978) from Robert Gallimard to Fernande Gontier, concerning publication of the 2 chapters, along with a 1979 edition of the book that is the first to include them. Provenance: Fernande Gontier (Sotheby’s Paris, May 21, 2008). very good. Item #841
Carbon typescript, 63 pages numbered 2–64 (in French), with a few typed corrections (these are darker). It’s the first 2, rejected, chapters of her first book L’Invitée (The Guest, published in English as She Came to Stay), paginated and prepared for editing and printing in red ballpoint pen, some edges a bit frayed but very good condition.
Price:
$1,250.00