Littérature

Small 4to. 25, 20, 14, 19, (5) ff. Loosely inserted within a cover of contemporary marbled boards with giltstamped calf label to spine. In marbled slipcase. Appealing collection of drafts for Carco's popular "Heures d'Égypte" (Avignon, 1940), dedicated to his impressions of Egypt and his travel memoirs. They comprise three chapters of the "Heures", beginning with "L'Égypte est une présence", including a brief description of the multi-storey palace of the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette-Pacha, omitted from the published version, praising its bridges, boats, and sails, which are said to be of a blinding whiteness in sharp contrast with the ocean's blue: "Son chateau de plusieurs étages, ses ponts, ses embarcations, ses prélarts d'une blancheur éblouissante contrastaient avec l'azur fonci des flots bleus [...]". - Accompanying these are two drafts entitled "Sortilèges", renamed "Une histoire de Momie" in the print edition, as well as one of the chapter "Promenade au Mouski", the latter discussing the French writer Gérard de Nerval and his stay in Egypt: "Nerval must have wandered under these signs [...] until 1906, control registers were not required by the Egyptian police and the only information about Gérard's travels is contained in Gautier's [i. e. the French poet and Nerval's travel companion Théophile Gautier] lovely book - full of love, money and light - which the poet left behind during his sojourn in the country. Nerval had been planning to leave for years since the dark winter night of 1841 when, responding to a friend he thought strange, he exclaimed that he was not going home, but was heading East" (transl.). - With numerous erasures and corrections in ink as well as in blue and red crayon. Extremities lightly bumped. A very well preserved set.