ARNOUX (Alexandre) - Lot 280

ARNOUX (Alexandre) ARNOUX, Alexandre (1884-1973). Autograph manuscript signed: "Le Quartier Vendôme", [Paris], circa 1945. Important autograph working manuscript written in black ink on ruled paper, comprising 15 numbered in-4 pages, extensively corrected and reworked in the writer's hand. Autograph title at the top: "Quartier Vendôme". Numerous erasures, interlinear additions and editorial variants attest to a true preparatory state intended for printing. This text is clearly the original manuscript or a very advanced working copy of the chapter devoted to the "Quartier Vendôme" in the collective work Les Grands Jours du 1er arrondissement de Paris, published by S.I.P.E. in 1945, printed in small numbers on cloth. An early filing annotation on the first leaf reads: "Alexandre Arnoux - MAS - Le Quartier Vendôme". The author offers a vast literary and historical evocation of the Vendôme district, combining memories of aristocratic Paris, urban descriptions, historical meditations and aesthetic considerations. The text, written in a dense, nervous style, is enriched with important autograph corrections, revealing Alexandre Arnoux's stylistic work at every stage of composition. Writer, playwright, critic and member of the Académie Goncourt, Alexandre Arnoux was one of the great French literary figures of the inter-war and post-war years. Autograph manuscripts of his published texts remain rare on the market. Joint : a modern print reproducing the bibliographic notice of the collective work Les Grands Jours du 1er arrondissement de Paris, in which the text was published. A very fine literary and historical set, particularly representative of the creative work of a twentieth-century Parisian writer.