GIDE, André.

Lot 1434
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Estimation :
1500 - 2000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 4 297EUR
GIDE, André.
La Porte étroite. Paris, Société du Mercure de France, 1909. In-12 [168 x 108] of (1) blank f., 273 pp. and (2) blank ff. the last one : dark blue jansenist morocco, ribbed spine, burgundy morocco lining with gilt fillet, dark blue moiré silk endpapers, gilt edges, cover and spine preserved, slipcase (Huser). First edition: 300 copies on Arches laid paper. First book not published on author's account, the "ironic" story touched a large public. Partly autobiographical, the study of the couple and of "the dangers of a certain form of mysticism, very precisely Protestant" forms an unexpected counterpoint to L'Immoraliste and constitutes his farewell to symbolism. Autograph address signed on the false title: to Madame Rachilde // in cordial homage // André Gide Wife of Alfred Valette, director of the Mercure de France, the novelist Rachilde (1860-1953) held a salon in the offices of the Mercure where she received writers and poets of the time, among them Pierre Louÿs, Paul Verlaine, Catulle Mendès, Guillaume Apollinaire, Alfred Jarry or André Gide. The copy is enriched with a beautiful autograph letter addressed to Charles Péguy. Probably written in January 1909, it concerns the Nouvelle Revue Française whose first official issue appeared on February 1st. (Autograph letter signed, 1 p. in-8.) "My dear Péguy, It is too late alas! I have now given my book to Jean Schlumberger, for the Nouvelle Revue Française which he creates and directs with some devoted friends and whose first number will appear in February. It is a review whose material pretensions are very modest but that our good-will joined together will make, I hope enough solid, and that we estimate very necessary, the other 'literary reviews' appearing to us deplorably galvaudées. [...]" A choice copy in Huser's lined morocco.
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