Gustave Flaubert - Autograph Letter Signed To A Colleague - 1867

Autograph letter signed by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880).

Valuable and enthusiastic letter to a colleague. "What pleases me in your criticism is the absence of any manner, of any bias, of any school."

Croisset near Rouen, August 24 [1867], to a writer; 3 pages in-8 on blue paper. Size: 20.8 x 26.8 cm deployed - With magnetized Plexiglas frame (included): 22.5 x 33 cm.

Beautiful letter full of enthusiasm, benevolence and great human warmth as Flaubert could often testify.

While Paris was living to the rhythm of the lavish 1867 Universal Exhibition, Flaubert was in the midst of work on his masterpiece in August: L'Éducation sentimentale.

"Dear Sir

It was only the day before yesterday that I found your business card and brochure on my table in Paris.

I'm sure you weren't waiting for my reply, so I'm convinced that this little work, so full of ideas, pleases me infinitely. We share too many of the same aesthetic doctrines for there to be anything but sympathy between us.

What an excellent background there is to your work. How one senses that you've read and thought about it! What I like about your review is the absence of any mannerism, any bias, any school. Do us a great book on this question: morality in art. What a service you'd be doing!

As for your latest work, it's not in a letter that we can talk about it, since each line contains an overview, a horizon. I'd like to see you and chat with you at length, it would be more convenient.

Have you left Bordeaux? If so, please remember my address in Paris. I've only had the pleasure of seeing you for a few moments.

But there has been between us, it seems to me, a beginning of friendship. I only ask to continue it, dear Sir, and I beg you to accept the handshake I send you most cordially,

Gustave Flaubert

Croisset near Rouen

August 24

[Post-scriptum:]

I won't be in Paris until next winter."