ZOLA TURNS ON HIS CRITICS

ZOLA (ÉMILE, 1840-1902, novelist) FINE AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT 'PRÉFACE' TO HIS COMEDY LES HÉRITIERS RABOURDIN, SIGNED, MARKED UP FOR AND USED BY THE PRINTER, complete in itself, with numerous autograph deletions and revisions, [second] compositor's name written in pencil on page 10, casting off mark in pencil, and light ink marks and smudges from the printers' fingers, 19 leaves, written on the rectos only, each leaf guarded, one leaf cut across with replacement text for the upper portion, bound in purple silk boards, slightly worn, slip-case also in purple silk, small quarto, dated 15 November 1874

Autograph literary manuscripts by Zola rarely appear for sale. American Book Prices Current record none since 1981.

After the failure of his comedy Les Héritiers Rabourdin at the Théâtre de Cluny, Zola drafted the present powerfully argued and indignant 'Préface', stating that he wished to profit from criticisms of the piece, but that he had only received 'the most awful drubbing...this was not a discussion, it was a massacre'. Acknowledging his debts to Molière and Ben Jonson, he explains that he had been attempting to produce something in a particular dramatic genre, and in going back to the sources of French theatre to resuscitate the old literary farce. His subject was the 'eternal greed of mankind, the comedy of heirs attending the opening of a will' and he was trying to give a contemporary and natural treatment ('...formule naturaliste que j'indiquais dans ma préface de Thérese Raquin...') to a universal theme ('..Imaginez la bête humaine lâchée, avec tous ses appétits... dans la réalité contemporaine, avec nos moeurs, nos vêtements, notre milieu...'). He defends himself against the charge of having written a farce by claiming that farce has the unlimited freedom of satire which had always attracted such giants as Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Rabelais and Molière, and rejects the baubles ('babioles charmantes') of the theatrical 'professionals'. He replies to the three specific charges that his comedy lacks gaiety; that there are no attractive characters; and that the scene of the action remains the same for three acts. Welcoming the title of novelist that one of the critics had taunted him with ('...Les romanciers ont fait la gloire littérature de ce siècle...'), he takes comfort in the public's reception of his work, and after thanking the director of the theatre and the players, especially Miss Raynard and Julia Clerc as the female leads, Zola concludes: '...Pour le moment, je n'ai qu'à me laver les mains...Depuis dix ans, je publie des romans, que je lance derrière moi, sans écouter le bruit qu'ils font en tombant dans la foule. Quand il y en aura un tas, les passants seront bien obligés de s'arrêter. Aujourd'hui, je m'aperçois que le combat est le même au théâtre. Ma pièce est massacrée, niée, noyée au milieu du tapage de la critique courante. Peu importe. Je pousse mes verroux, je m'exile de nouveau dans le travail...'

Zola was fore-warned of the probable reaction to his play by Adolphe Lemoine-Montigny who told him 'I've read the play carefully, I've reflected upon it, I'm quite sure it won't fly...Your work has lots of verve, spirit, keen observation...But a situation that doesn't change, the same stew simmering throughout...nothing to divert one from thoughts of death, sickness, last will and testament, inheritance. One room, cold and grey, in which sunbeams never fall and party lights never shine. It's obvious that people will conclude: talent galore, but wearisome.'

The play opened at the Théâtre de Cluny with a ragtag troupe. Flaubert led the group of supporting friends who went, banging his approval with his stick. The critics handled Zola very roughly, one declaring 'this humoristic comedy is quite simply boring comedy', but it played to crowded houses on successive Sundays. Zola subsequently wrote the present 'preface-manifesto' against Boulevard comedy, or comedy fraught with moral purpose. He later rescued something from the play in his novel Pot-Bouille. (Frederick Brown, Zola, 1995).

£4,500