FARGUE Léon-Paul (1876-1947). MANUSCRIT autograph... Lot 49

FARGUE Léon-Paul (1876-1947). MANUSCRIT autograph signed " Léon-Paul Fargue ", Tancrède, 1894; 38 ff. in a schoolbook of 46 ff. small in-4 (22,5 x 18 cm), original green half-percaline boards with corners, green half-maroquin folder with flaps, case (case rubbed). Precious complete and original autograph manuscript of Léon-Paul Fargue's first masterpiece. Tancrède, "this particular moment of the late symbolism", according to Jean-Paul Goujon, was published in the Franco-German review Pan, in 1895-1896; a project of publication in booklet to the Editions du Centaure having not succeeded, following the disappearance of the review, it is only in 1911 that Tancrède was published by the care and at the expenses of Valery Larbaud. Fargue did not authorize a reprint until 1943, when several chapters were cut from the text. "There was several times a young man so beautiful that women wanted expressly that he wrote. The work, "a small lyrical novel", is composed of six prose texts and two series of poems. It is in a way a novel of intellectual and sensual learning. The manuscript is written with care on the front of the lined and margined paper sheets of the notebook, in black or violet ink; 2 ff. carry on the back of the verses crossed out. It is dated at the end "Paris-Chaillac, 1894". It corresponds to the complete version, as it appeared in Pan and published by Larbaud, and presents some erasures and corrections, as well as annotations for the organization of the volume. On the flyleaf of the present manuscript, Léon-Paul Fargue himself has traced the genesis of his book, in an autograph note dated March 14, 1930: "This little 'lyrical novel' was composed in 1893, in class, and confiscated, then returned with emotion by my teacher, Monsieur Vautier. It was published for the first time in Pan, a Franco-German review, in 1895, with illustrations by Launay, Bottini, Delcourt, who have since died, and "published in volume" in 1911, by Valery Larbaud. The title, at the head of the first text, presents a crossed-out subtitle: "or the dream in words (for children from 16 to 18 years old)"; this text in prose presents the life of Tancrède (f. 1-4); on the back of the first page, one notes 11 crossed-out verses: "The spiral shakes"... In chapter II, "Prologue, ou le vol du bracelet d'or" (f. 5-7), in prose, Tancrède spends the night with a young prostitute whom he leaves in the morning. Chapter III, " Histoire de cette femme ou les fous (narration) " (f. 8-11) is a tale : " Plusieurs aimaient la même femme "... It is followed by the poem Réprimande, with the note: "À reporter dans les poésies avant Paysages" (f. 12). Chapter IV, Tremblant, is subtitled: "Seven variants, made to chant the march or calm the nerves", that is to say 7 poems (f. 13-18). Chapter V, Lieds où l'on sourit pour ne pas pleurer, with an epigraph by Rimbaud (. 19-32), includes 9 poems: Phrases 1 and 2, Matin, Klagelied, Paysages, L'enfant, Ronde, Divers objets, Amoureux transis. The following prose poems follow: VI "Emblem that will pretext notes" (f. 33-34); VII "Allegory at dawn" (f. 35-36); VIII "Traits of character, or Jean who cries and Jean who laughs", self-portrait of Tancrède/Fargue, which closes the book. Provenance : Maurice Joullié (ex-libris).