Description

"Amants, heureux amants" (Lovers, happy lovers)  preceded by "Beauty, my beautiful concern and followed by "My most secret advice".

FIRST EDITION.
Review copy.

Autograph signed letter to Marguerite Audoux :

"to Marguerite Audoux, 
his old friend,
V. Larbaud

"One of our first visits here was to the convent of Marie-Claire. We managed to find it, or so we thought. We were very moved by the idea of being there, I can assure you."
In November 1910, a few days before the Prix Fémina was awarded, Larbaud and Fargue drove through the Cher in Kasie - Larbaud's car - on a kind of pilgrimage, "very beautiful and very painful", to Margueritte Audoux's childhood haunts.
As soon as he read the manuscript of Marie-Claire, Larbaud was dazzled by the author's style and lent his hand, and his beautiful handwriting, to a clean copy for Mirbeau.
Their first meeting took place in 1908 through Charles-Louis Philippe, when Larbaud was virtually unknown. A zealous discoverer of foreign authors and a diligent translator, he had received a vote in the 1908 Goncourt - from Mirbeau - for his Poems by a rich amateur . In a way, his real entry into French literature re-enacts that of Marguerite Audoux: a year after Marie-Claire, under Mirbeau's auspices (once again), he also published a novel about his childhood, Fermina Marquez (1911), whose aristocratic simplicity of style earned him four Goncourt votes.
Their literary closeness was coupled with a true friendship, and, as he would later do with Joyce and Beckett, Larbaud helped Audoux materially while she looked after his
He took care of his domestic affairs when he was away. Audoux read Larbaud's works with application and passion, supporting and encouraging him: "I think you've really gained in strength of expression. I didn't find here the sort of shyness that I had noticed in your other things. Your article reminded me of a solid punch on the table. It simply proves that you are beginning to realise your worth. Bravo, my dear Valery, I'm glad to see you like this. It seems to me (as someone who doesn't know much about French) that your French has become purer and stronger. "(letter July - early August 1910)
Larbaud, for his part, wrote a very fine article for the publication of L'Atelier de Marie Claire :
"Marguerite Audoux had never written for the public, for those people who say of themselves that they are 'interested in literature' [...] Marguerite Audoux had always written for the public.
She wanted to continue writing for the educated, and the educated, who are different from the general public (what Voltaire called "le gros monde") precisely in that for them fashion does not exist, and who read Montaigne or Rabelais with more interest than the latest novel that all the salons are talking about - the educated know how to wait without forgetting. " (Primarys , August 1922)

This book is part of the catalogue devoted to Marguerite Audoux that we have just published online, and is available on our website.