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149
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(Manuscript) – Alexandre DUMAS the Younger.
See original version (French)
149
-
(Manuscript) – Alexandre DUMAS the Younger.
See original version (French)
Estimate €500 - €700
Voluntary lot
Description
(Manuscript) – Alexandre DUMAS the Younger. The Road to Thebes. (A play in four acts). [1894].
36 ff., 38 ff., 25 ff., 27 ff. folio, written on both sides of the page.
Copy made by Henriette Dumas.
The last, unfinished play by Dumas the Younger, who did not write the fifth act.
On the road to Thebes, Oedipus encountered the Sphinx. Dr Didier, a married man and father, towards the end of his life encounters a mysterious and unsettling beauty. Didier, a distinguished doctor, is another Dumas: husband to a woman he no longer loved and passionately in love with Henriette for the past eight years. Nadine Dumas died on 2 April 1895, and less than three months later Dumas married Henriette… As for Didier, he had given up on marrying Miliane, whom he considered too young to be bound to a man of his advanced years.
When a journalist, Philippe Gilles, asked him, ‘Shall we see *La Route de Thèbes*?’, Dumas Fils replied: ‘Do you really think so? To risk a theatre run at my age, when I have no more blows to take. No! I’d be better off leaving *La Route de Thèbes* in my drawers. I do believe it’s one of my best plays; I also believe I’ll never stage it.’ (*Le Figaro*, 28 November 1895).
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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