Description

FIRST EDITION on publisher's paper, after 5 copies on Japon and 25 copies on Hollande. First volume (of 4) of the memoirs of Myriam Harry, first winner of the Prix Fémina.

AUTOGRAPH SIGNED LETTER TO MARGUERITE AUDOUX:

To Madame Marguerite Audoux
very affectionately
Myriam Harry

"No petticoats here!"Huysmans would have exclaimed about the Académie Goncourt. It was all very well when, in 1903, the poet Anna de Noailles was rejected for the award of the prize for a work in prose. But the following year, Myriam Harry, whose novel The Conquest of Jerusalem  was given as the favourite, was in turn ousted in favour of Léon Frapié. In response, a jury of 22 women met to award her the first Vie heureuse prize (later known as the Fémina).
After becoming a member of the jury herself (from 1907 to 1958), Myriam Harry attended the crowning of Marie-Claire. She describes the event in the article "Memories of the Fémina"published in a brochure celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the prize:

Marguerite Audoux was suspected of not having written her book alone... Had she been a pastourelle? Was she a poor seamstress? Did she live with... et patati et patata. I knew nothing about her, but I liked her novel, and when it won our votes, I was happy to go and tell her the good news myself. I didn't find her at home, but my husband went to fetch her for lunch a few days later. She was a small, pleasant, cheerful person, ^«naturally natural^» in the words of Jules Lemaître, fluent, clear, picturesque and very capable of having written Marie-Claire. (quoted in Archives Marguerite Audoux, note on letter n°254)

This is followed by a number of fanciful anecdotes about the life of Marguerite Audoux and Charles-Louis Philippe, who for a long time shared a single pair of shoes...