Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE. Partially autograph typescript,... Lot 370

Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE. Partially autograph typescript, signed "LFerd", [Letter to Jean Lestandi, 1942]; 7pages in-fol. or in-4. A vigorous open letter rejecting the label of anarchist attached to him. This letter was published on September 10, 1942 in Au pilori, the last of Céline's four letters published in this magazine edited by Jean Lestandi. In his "Mémoire en défense", Céline denied these letters, claiming they had been "arranged, fiddled with, falsified". This typescript, in addition to numerous autograph corrections and additions, includes the insertion of three important autograph additions by crutches, of 4, 16 and 10 lines, including the conclusion. It presents important variants with the published text. "Dear Lestandi, You ask me why I don't write anymore? You are very kind. My answer is simple. And Céline adds in his own handwriting: "What is written is written. No repetition. What must be written, nothing more, at the right moment. The moment passed, the danger passed, place"... Writers are needed, merchants, "slanderers, bourriques, the unspeakable. I've always got a good pack of them on my ass"... Then he denounces the "little clan [...] who suddenly want me to become anti-German, and whisper it everywhere, and to overwhelm me even more: anarchist. "Anarchist" is a good dagger, always easy to place. The word is enough, it sinks in. Revenge of the stooges. [...] Everything is carrion in this scum: Jews, anti-Semites, old Masons, informers from all over, young losers, Front Popu wannabes, those who camouflage everything, label merchants... Ah! what a dream to suppress me! Place nette! Just think, such a witness! Further on, he adds in his own handwriting (this passage will be modified in the diary): "Monzie, this old clown, is cooking up a History of France for us, a Masonic and Semitic one I imagine, what could he do better? A great friend of Bernard Lecache, Grand Protecteur du Tout Métèque, great lecturer in Lodges, honorary member of the LICA? It's certainly a tribute, at the end of a famous career. Three batteries for the galipette! The mystique is well under way! The whole press is already jubilant, praising and quivering with delight! Monzie crosses himself! France is saved! I expect his work to be on the syllabus of every school, with comments by Raynaud, and the Master's Ode to Worms"... Céline responds to the criticisms and attacks directed against him, before concluding in his own hand: "Ami notre saison s'avance! We're entering another world, half dead already, from fatigue. Caron owes me a little corner... a Styx fry! No, I'll never be sad, dead or alive... With a light soul I greet you, and wait for you!"... Cahiers Céline 7, p.168 (text of article).