Manuscript & Object Collect... Extensive archival or manus... Philip Kolb collection of M... Finding AidBy UIUC RBML Staff
Title: Philip Kolb collection of Marcel Proust papers, 1870-1950
ID: 01/01/MSS00045
Primary Creator: Proust, Marcel (1871-1922)
Extent: 12.0 Cubic Feet
Languages: French
This descriptions is under construction. Though this location will soon be the only point of access for the collection, the most complete finding aid for this collection (until the revision is finished) can be located at:
http://www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/findingaids/html/UIU00004.html
Papers of the French novelist Marcel Proust provides a look at the man and his times. Proust had a large and varied number of correspondents, and his letters include an important source of information about Parisian life and French culture at the turn of the century. Includes published and unpublished manuscripts, documents and letters about the Dreyfus Affair, John Ruskin, and the nature and function of literary criticism.
Born July 10, 1871 in Auteuil, France, a suburb of Paris, to wealthy parents Dr. Adrien Proust and Jeanne Weil. A nervous and frail child, he suffered from severe asthma. He completed one year of military service, then studied law and philosophy. He published his first works, Portraits de Peintres and Plaisirs et les Jours, in 1896. Proust's unpublished works from this period, Jean Santeuil and Contre Sainte-Beuve, were discovered in the 1950s.
His earliest love affairs, which had been heterosexual, changed later into homosexual affairs. To the age of 35 Proust lived the life of a social climber in the Paris salons, although he worked for a short time as a lawyer and was also active in the Dreyfuss affair.
During 1899 he became interested in the works of the English critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), and after Ruskin's death the next year, Proust published an article that established him as a Ruskin scholar. Proust wrote several more articles on Ruskin, and with the help of an English-speaking friend, Marie Nordlinger, and his mother, Proust translated into French Ruskin's The Bible of Amiens (1904) and Sesame and Lilies (1906).
When Proust's father died in 1903 and his mother in 1905, he withdrew gradually from society, living in a sound-proof apartment and devoting himself chiefly to writing and introspection. In 1913 Proust published the first of his seven part major work, A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past). The second volume appeared in 1919 and won the Goncourt Prize, and the next parts made him internationally famous. He worked on his novel from 1909 until the end of life.
Died November 18, 1922 in Paris, France of bronchitis and pneumonia, contracted after a series of asthma attacks. The final volumes of his novel appeared under the direction of his brother Robert.
In his own lifetime, the merit of Proust's novel was debated by those who perceived its brilliance and those who claimed it was unreadable. Today it is recognized as one of the major literary works of the Western canon.
Repository: University of Illinois Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Access Restrictions: Open to researchers.
Use Restrictions:
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Related Publications: A Legacy finding aid can be found at: http://hdl.handle.net/10111/UIUCOCA:checklistofprous00univ
Processing Information: https://wiki.cites.uiuc.edu/wiki/display/librare/Home
Other URL: http://www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/findingaids/html/UIU00004.html
Scope Note: According to library records, this gathering looks to have be acquired by "Librarie Henri Lefebvre" directly from Proust's sister-in-law, Madame Robert Proust, at the time of Proust's brother's death in 1935. Carlton Lake mentions (in his 1990 Confessions of a literary archaeologist) dealing with Henri Lefevbre while pursuing an interest in Seurat and Cocteau in mid-1930s Paris, and this is likely the same dealer. At the urging of Philip Kolb, and with the support of the University Research Board, The University of Illinois libraries acquired the item in 1961, likely from Lefevbre's son, Marcel.
The collection includes a wealth of information about Proust and his family, and a sizable group of letters that enriched Philip Kolb's edition of Proust's General Correspondence. The contents of this group of materials include 68 letters by Proust, 65 of them in his hand. Proust manuscripts, 20 items in all, including fragments of Proust's early novel Jean Santeuil. Proof sheets from various Proust works, most bearing manuscript corrections in his hand. For Proust's translation of Ruskin's Bible of Amiens there are manuscript pages (some in his hand, and some in his mother's), typescripts with Proust's annotations, and proof sheets. For Proust's translation of Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies there are also proof sheets. A Proust contract with his editors, 67 autograph pages of various Proust works, and assorted documents of the Proust family round out this gathering of materials. The folders are labeled with the Lefevbre name by convention rather than as an attempt to establish any original agency on the part of the dealer who brokered the placement of the materials at the Unversity of Illinois libraries. Given Lefevbre's wide ranging collecting and brokering interests in the literature of early twentieth century France, the connection makes an interesting minor point of history.
Note: Written from: [Fontainebleau]
Published in Kolb: II, p. 137, n. 74
Dated on letter "Mercredi matin, 9 heures 1/2 [21 octobre 1896]"
First line: "Il pleut averse. Je n'ai pas eu d'asthme cette nuit. Et c'est seulement tout � l'heure apr�??�?�¨s avoir beaucoup �??�?�¨ternu�??�?�¨ que j'ai d�??�?�» fumer un peu..."
Note: Published in Kolb: XIX, p. 203, n. 88
Date on letter estimated as "[Le 12 avril 1920]"
First line: "En passant par le plus grand hasard au domicile depuis lequel j'en ai habitè trois, je trouve une nombreuse correspondance qu'on a eu la bêtise de ne pas me faire suivre à la bonne adresse..."
