PROUST MARCEL: (1871-1922)

PROUST MARCEL: (1871-1922) French Novelist and Essayist. Best known for his major novel A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (`In search of Lost Time´). An excellent content T.L.S., `Marcel Proust´, one page, 8vo, Paris, 21st February 1922, to a friend, in French. The present letter is dated the last year of Proust´s life. Proust refers to his ongoing illness and to Baudelaire´s verses and states in part `Mon ami, vous vous imaginez vous-même combien j´ai du être souffrant pour n´avoir pas pu vous répondre, vous dire comme j´étais pleinement convaincu du sens vrai de la phrase que j´avais mal comprise et me voici de nouveau malade, ne pouvant pas écrire et obligé de dicter´ (`My friend, you can imagine yourself how much I must have been suffering for not having been able to answer you, to tell you how fully convinced I was of the true meaning of the sentence that I had misunderstood and here I am again. sick, unable to write and forced to dictate´) Proust further refers to Baudelaire and expresses his own wish to prove that he is a novelist, stating `Je commence à comprendre les vers de Baudelaire sur la mort qui délivre, mais je voudrais pourtant bien finir mon œuvre et prouver à la Fée que je suis romancier. Il est probable du reste que Bourget partage son avis puisqu´il ne m´a pas fait figurer dans son Jury pour le prix du roman…´ (`I'm starting to understand Baudelaire's verses on death that rescues, but I would like however to finish my work and prove to the Fairy that I am a novelist. It is probable, moreover, that Bourget shares his opinion since he did not include me in his Jury for the prize of the novel…´) With blank integral leaf. The present letter is not included in the Proust´s correspondence publications. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1868) French Poet, a pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. In April 1921 Proust completed a very extensive article, his last one, `A Propos de Baudelaire´ (`About Baudelaire´), written on the occasion of the centenary of his birth date. Proust wrote `Peut-être, hélas, faut-il contenir la mort en soi, être menacé d´aphasie comme Baudelaire, pour avoir cette lucidité dans la souffrance véritable...´ (`Perhaps, alas, it is necessary to contain death in oneself, to be threatened with aphasia like Baudelaire, to have this lucidity in the true suffering,…´)