GAUTIER, Émile Jean-Marie - Lot 68

GAUTIER, Émile Jean-Marie Émile Gautier L.A.S. "Émile Gautier" addressed to an unidentified correspondent. Paris, s.d. [January 27]. 2 pages in-8 on Figaro headed paper. Charming, lively letter of literary and political sociability in which Émile Gautier enthusiastically discusses reading La Question du Maroc, a work he says he "devoured with passionate interest". He writes: "This story of the Kiss is truly prodigious, but how typical!" and adds that he still has "two chapters to read" before responding more fully. The letter then takes on a friendly, witty tone: Gautier accepts an invitation to lunch "over a good bottle", sharing with his correspondent "this depraved taste for the various joys of life". He proposes a meeting to converse "de omni re scibili et de quibusdam aliis", an erudite formula borrowed from the humanist tradition, before evoking the "Franco-Ottoman Union" and a certain Alexandre Chalhoub, introduced as "my young friend the Syriac". A singular figure in French journalism at the end of the 19th century, Émile Gautier was involved in the famous "Procès des 66", before turning to a career as a columnist and polemicist at Le Figaro and L'Écho de Paris, in Octave Mirbeau's circle. A fine literary, social and political letter, reflecting the intellectual networks of the Parisian press at the turn of the century. Good overall condition; folds of correspondence and minor marginal foxing.