émile Zola - Touché Par La Clémence Sur Son Deuxième Roman - Autograph Letter Signed 1889

Autograph letter signed from Émile Zola (1840-1902) to Ange Galdemar (1857-1939), journalist at Le Figaro.

Paris, October 18, 1889. One page in-8 on a double leaf. Size: 20.5 x 13.3 cm.

Interresting letter on Zola's view of his second,Le Vœu d'une morte originally published in 1866 at age 26 (Cf infra) . That same October 1889, Zola's publisher Georges Charpentier decided to republish Zola's early works. The writer was well aware that this text was weak compared to his masterpieces, but he found the perspective interesting, and warmly thanked Galdemar for having given "a very good account of the novelist of today" in his article in the Figaro, published the day before on October 16, 1889. (A copy of the Figaro article is enclosed with the letter.)

Paris, October 18, 1889

Mon cher ami, je ne vous ai pas encore remercié de votre si aimable article au Figaro sur "Le vœu d'une morte"

Je tiens a vous dire combien il m'a touché.

The book isn't worth much and you've been very charming in not saying too much about it, making the most of today's novelist.

Merci et tout a vous

Émile Zola

Le Veux d'une morte (which follows La Confession de Claude,premier roman paru en 1865) first appeared in L'Évènement from September 11 to 26, 1866, then in volume with Achille Faure. For the 1889 edition published by Charpentier, Zola rewrote much of his text, and prefaced it with a disclaimer: "I have decided to give it back to the public, not for its merit, certainly, but for the interesting comparison that those curious about literature may one day be tempted to make, between these early pages and those I wrote later. "

Summary: Blanche de Rionne, a young, ill-married aristocrat, takes on the task of raising Daniel, a boy who miraculously escaped a fire. On her deathbed, she entrusts him with the moral guardianship of her six-year-old daughter, Jeanne. When Jeanne left the convent at the age of 18, Daniel played the "mute role of preceptor", following her everywhere, dressed in black. But he can't prevent her from marrying badly, and then falling in love with his best friend, Georges, to whom in turn, on the verge of death, he entrusts her.

Zola plays the game of the popular novel: Manicheism of the characters, twists in the action, pathos, good feelings, disregard for verisimilitude. It's all about moving garrets and thatched cottages. Compared to La Confession de Claude, the step backwards is noticeable. This is food literature, however, the background describes a ferocious social vision that would later be developed in La Curée.

[Possibility of framing with passe partout and anti-uv and anti-reflective glass: 250 euros.]