1 / 3
Featured lot selected by the auctions House.
Premium MARAMBAT - de MALAFOSSE
160
-
[AUTOGRAPH]. FLAUBERT (Gustave).
See original version (French)
160
-
[AUTOGRAPH]. FLAUBERT (Gustave).
See original version (French)
Estimate €700 - €800
Voluntary lot
Description
[AUTOGRAPH]. FLAUBERT (Gustave). HANDWRITTEN NOTES FOR *L’Éducation sentimentale*. [Croisset, c. 1867]. One and a half pages on a folio-sized sheet. Very minor paper losses in the margins; a corner loss not affecting the text, repaired with adhesive tape covering three words without impeding legibility; four small pieces of adhesive tape used to repair tears. MEDICAL HANDWRITTEN NOTES ON CRUP taken whilst reading the work *Clinique médicale de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Paris* by Armand TROUSSEAU, first published in two volumes in 1861–62. Flaubert even specifies at the top of the sheet: ‘Vol. 1, p. 335’. Flaubert read Trousseau’s book in December 1867: ‘As for my reading, I have recently devoted myself to the study of croup. There is no style more long-winded and vacuous than that of doctors! What a lot of hot air!” (letter to Jules Duplan, 15 December 1867). Flaubert used these notes to describe in his novel the illness of the young Eugène Arnoux, who was suffering from ‘croup’, a serious respiratory condition that prompted Madame Arnoux to cancel the romantic rendezvous she had initially agreed to with Frédéric. When her son recovers by expelling the false membrane characteristic of the illness, she sees this as a sign from Providence. It is therefore an IMPORTANT EPISODE IN FLAUBERT’S NOVEL, as this event influences Madame Arnoux’s decisions and forces her to give up her plans to become Frédéric’s mistress. Certain clinical descriptions by Trousseau are clearly reflected in Flaubert’s text. Thus, in Trousseau’s description, at the bottom of page 341 of the 1865 edition, the following is noted: ‘The cough is not loud or resounding, but on the contrary hoarse, muffled and dry, producing a sound comparable to the distant barking of a young dog’, which becomes, in Flaubert’s notes, ‘the cough is not resonant or loud, but hoarse and muffled, like the distant barking of a young dog’, before appearing in the novel’s text in its final form: ‘His cough resembled the sound of those crude mechanical devices that make cardboard dogs yelp’. Manuscript accompanied by its CERTIFICATE OF EXPORT FOR A CULTURAL OBJECT, issued by the Ministry of Culture on 25 November 2009. ¶ René Dumesnil, ‘Flaubert and Sentimental Education’, which publishes these notes on pp. 54–55.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like