MEILHAC (Henry) et Ludovic HALÉVY.

Lot 69
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Estimation :
2000 - 3000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 9 478EUR
MEILHAC (Henry) et Ludovic HALÉVY.
Le Mari de la débutante. Paris, Calmann Lévy, 1879. In-8 square, blue morocco, triple fillet gilt, spine decorated, inner lace, gilt head, untrimmed, cover, case (Chambolle-Duru). First edition. This is the first version of this comedy which was performed at the Palais-Royal from February 1879. After a few performances, the text was in fact reworked by the authors who added a fifth act, thus proposing a definitive version which was published in 1880 by the same publisher. Émile Zola, who gave an interesting analysis of the play in Nos auteurs dramatiques (1881, pp. 285-287), reports the circumstances of this complete transformation: One remembers that, when the first version was performed, the first three acts had a great effect [...]. Then, the fourth act, the last one, almost spoiled everything. The authors, without warning, had entered into a daring portrayal of the husband of an actress, posing as an administrator of the talent and beauty of his wife. This somewhat crude portrayal, with a ferocity of observation that was not sufficiently disguised by jokes, chilled the audience, which became cold, almost hostile. [...] I believe that one should never touch a work that has been performed. It is good or bad, it doesn't matter; as long as it belongs to the public, it must be preserved with its qualities and its defects. [...] It is a thousand times better to spend on a new work the time one wastes in trying to balance a work that is lame from birth. [...] I liked it very much, this old last act, sacrificed to the first coldness of the public, and I pushed things to the point of claiming that it was the only original and new one. Superb copy, unique, illustrated by Henriot with about a hundred original illustrations spread out in the margins of the text, mostly watercolours in vivid colours, to which are added a few pen-and-ink drawings. The signature of the artist, the caricaturist Henri Maigrot (1857-1933), alias Henriot, is affixed to the composition that adorns the title page, followed by the date 1886. Darkened spine.
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