Sand GeorgeABAA
SAND GeorgeABAA
The complete working autograph manuscript of George Sand's Cora with numerous corrections additions & deletions 44 leaves written in ink on rectos only numbered by hand and signed "Georges Sand" on the final leaf. 8vo 200 x 133 mm. fine red morocco "FA" monogram inlaid in blue morocco on upper cover blue morocco doublures decorated with gilt fleurons signed "Paul Romain Raparlier" spine gilt. N.p.: 1832-33
6953The autograph manuscript of one of Sand's earliest novellas. It contains nearly 300 ink deletions and corrections and vividly reveals the author's writing process. Cora appeared in print for the first time on 9 February 1833 in the fifth volume of the collection of tales Le Salmigondis. Sand 1804-76 wrote it shortly after her split with the novelist Jules Sandeau 1811-83. Sand's works from 1832 to 1834 are particularly revealing concerning her turbulent personal life and her total adoption of the bohemian and androgynous persona of "George Sand" for which she applied and received a permission de travestissement. Her early novellas served as insightful experiments while she developed the Romantic genre for which she is most famous. Composed in the first person this feminist novella caricatures provincial customs of the time especially with regards to the often tragic fate of women as a result of their romantic relationships and strict social conventions. Sand's preoccupation with sympathetically depicting female figures pervades the story. As in many of her works the main characters are lower class. The protagonist Georges a young official in an unnamed small town has returned from l'île Bourbon now known as Réunion and at a ball falls in love with Cora the daughter of a grocer. Their relationship never progresses past the "immaterial and magical" as she marries a trainee pharmacist and Georges falls seriously ill. Following a humiliating encounter with Cora and her father Georges flees the town. At the very end of the story he returns years later to find Cora surrounded by three children with "a long nose thinned lips eyes a bit red gaunt cheeks and several teeth missing." Bound-in before the manuscript is a presentation inscription from Lina Sand Calamatta the wife of Maurice Dudevant Sand's son to Monsieur Ferrand dated 26 June 1890. We also find two manuscript letters from Sand Calamatta laid-in one of them dated 27 January 1895. She was the daughter of the French Neoclassical painter Joséphine Calamatta 1817-93 and the Italian painter and engraver Luigi Calamatta 1802-69. In fine condition. It is quite rare to find complete autograph manuscripts of Sand's writings on the market. unknown books
