Gros & Delettrez
228
-
[MODERN LITERATURE – MANUSCRIPTS]
See original version (French)
228
-
[MODERN LITERATURE – MANUSCRIPTS]
See original version (French)
Estimate €100 - €150
Voluntary lot
Description
[MODERN LITERATURE – MANUSCRIPTS]
[ARTICLES AND ESSAYS].
LOT of 2 manuscripts.
-VARIOT, Jean.
French scholar, essayist, novelist and playwright. Small autograph manuscript signed on the subject of the United States.
(c. 1920–1930).
11 double-sided folios in small 8vo format, numbered. Deletions and corrections. Legible handwriting.
Unpublished reflections and critiques on the United States. The author, Jean James Joseph Gaston, known as Jean Variot (1881–1962), revisits the remarks of the Académie de Lyon, which, in 1782, wondered whether ‘the discovery of America had been beneficial or harmful to humankind’. He begins by openly criticising this line of reasoning and cites the so-called hostile relations between Spain and America as an example: “The cruelty attributed to the Spaniards must be one of those politically motivated lies of the same order as the lies spread by the said school against France’s splendid past.” He defends himself by highlighting the “qualities” of South Americans, in contrast to the “Yankees”.
The author then asserts his categorical position: “Wilson (...) whom statesmen responsible for European affairs regarded as the arbiter of the world (...) for, after all, Wilson was and is a madman; this madman was convenient; he served as a smokescreen for a vast mass of voters”. Finally, he attempts to persuade his reader: Americans who love France – and there are some – think exactly what I have just said. That is precisely why they love France! .
Probably written after the First World War and Wilson’s Fourteen Points for peace… Variot, the folklorist who loved Alsace, would eventually collaborate with the Germans after having been an anti-Dreyfusard.
ANTI-AMERICANISM.
-ZALESKI, Zygmunt L.
A Major Movement in 19th-Century Polish Poetry.
Paris, (c. 1930).
Narrow 8vo (c. 33 x 10.5 cm). 41 loose, oblong leaves, numbered. Written in ink (centre fold, a few stains on the reverse, small tear with no loss at the end).
Signed autograph manuscript.
Text of an article or lecture, fair-copied, with a few rare erasures. Zaleski distinguished himself through his active role in promoting Polish literature in Paris from 1914 onwards, where he held the first chair of Polish studies. He subsequently played an active part in the Resistance and worked to foster Franco-Polish relations.
Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski (born Zygmunt Zaleski of the Lubicz family) was a Polish writer, poet, academic, patriot and diplomat, born in Klonowiec (1882–1967).
19th-CENTURY POLISH LITERATURE.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
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