'GRIÈVEMENT BLESSÉ À LA TÊTE ET TRÉPANÉ'

APOLLINAIRE (GUILLAUME, 1880-1918, French poet, prose writer and art critic) FINE LONG AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED, WRITTEN FOUR MONTHS BEFORE HIS DEATH, in French, to Jacques Hautmont, about his own book, written in collaboration with André Rouveyre, Très plaisante histoire...de Perceval le Gallois, criticising scholars, with two lines in verse, for refusing to publish texts but being annoyed when others do so ('...Sensitive intellectuals are always unhappy/ Nothing can be good enough for them said the writer of fables, and the Spanish proverb about the gardener's dog applies very well...'); admitting that while he has no pretensions to a place among scholarly ranks he does try to remedy matters when he finds himself confronted with a state of affairs which wrongs educated if not erudite people, especially when a whole interesting section of French literature is denied to lovers of it as is true of many of these tales of chivalry which have never been reprinted, the reason why 'Nouvelle Bibliothèque Bleue' came into being in the first place; defending himself against his critics ('...The defects that may be spotted in these little books are nothing in comparison with their usefulness. If only in nurturing a sense of nationhood. These publications will not be perfect, agreed, but at least they will exist, and scholars will thereby have the opportunity to use their talent for focusing on the errors which their advice will enable us to eradicate...'); defining the audience at which the texts are aimed, namely not scholars but the educated public ('...This is popularisation, but I have never thought that editions of this kind might be aimed at the uneducated...the idea, to my way of thinking, was to make the reading of old texts easy...'); explaining that footnotes would have changed the character of the collection completely and given it a dry appearance; pointing out that the errors Hautmont has indicated are largely the result of the problems he experienced when correcting both sets of proofs, for neither of which he had the benefit of the original text and furthermore the first was done when he was in the army and the second after his serious head wound for which he had been trepanned; pointing out that delays during wartime might have resulted in the aborting of the scheme altogether and that all those who might have gone to the Bibliothéque Nationale on his behalf were like him either in the armed forces or in hospital ('...These reasons do not excuse the defects...but they provide an explanation...'); expressing regret that war has also meant that the texts cannot be illustrated, but telling his correspondent that another book in the collection, La vie de Bayard, is about to appear, although they anticipate that it will be confronted with the same unforeseeable problems that they faced in 1914; Apollinaire finally thanks Hautmont for the 'sound and impartial comments' he had made to the editor of the series, Mons. Payot, and promises to try to fulfil the hopes of the elite to which he belongs ('l'élite de laquelle vous faites partie'), 7 pages, octavo, with a translation, and the original autograph envelope, postal markings and the printed and handstamped 'Ministère des Colonies Cabinet du Minsitre' with Apollinaire's signature and address written by him across the handstamp, printed notepaper of the Chambre des Députés, 202 Boulevard St Germain, 11 July 1918 Letters by Apollinaire of this quality only rarely appear for sale.

£2,250