In Blanchot’s criticism (writing, for example, about Beckett, Holderlin, Kafka, Mallarmé, Proust, Rilke, Sade), he asked the question: what is literature? In philosophical dialogue with Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, he analyzed ontological and ethical questions.  He developed a theory of writing and the book that moved away from metaphysical truth toward a sense of absence and an ethics of the Other (‘community’) that was irreducibly plural.

Having disengaged from his right-wing political nationalist writings during the 1930s, he re-engaged on the left in 1958 with the Algerian War and the events of May 1968 in France.  He is the author of Awaiting Oblivion, The Book to Come, Death Sentence, The Madness of the Day, The Space of Literature, The Step Not Beyond, Thomas the Obscure, The Unavowable Community, The Writing of the Disaster, and The Infinite Conversation, among other works.

Houghton Library recently acquired page proofs of Blanchot’s 1969 major work, L’Entretien Infini (The Infinite Conversation).  Blanchot seemingly did not preserve the records of his literary work; these were (according to the dealer from whom they were purchased) salvaged from a rubbish bin by the husband of Blanchot’s long-time housekeeper.  The proofs contain numerous handwritten annotations by Blanchot, along with typewritten sheets inserted into the proofs (of which some are small slips taped over pages, and some are multiple pages in length).  Four pages are pictured below (click on each one to enlarge it).

An article providing an overview of the new material uncovered in the proofs, by Smith Professor of French Language and Literature Christie McDonald, along with a brief history of their journey to the Library by Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts Leslie Morris, will appear in the the new online journal of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, The Romance Sphere.

MS Fr 497.  Purchased with the Class of 1952 Manuscript Fund, the Amy Lowell Trust, and the Patrick Grant Second Memorial Fund 1928.  Houghton Library, Harvard University.

In the novel, a young artist falls in love with his seductive model, and ultimately is destroyed by her. Partly based on his own experiences, Daudet wrote it as a cautionary tale for his sons. He was already suffering from the effects of a syphilitic paralysis that would eventually kill him.

This edition, a beautiful example of late 19th-century English publishing, contains thirty wood engravings from designs by Louis Montegut.

*FC8.D2646.Eg886s. Purchased with the Roger Stoddard Book Fund. Images may not be reproduced without permission.

Published in the mid-1820s, Musée des Dames et des Demoiselles includes six small books covered in lavender paper and packed together in a blue and gilt paper gift box. Each book covers a different area of science appropriate for delicate demoiselles: fruit, flowers, minerals, butterflies, insects, and birds. Along with a hand-colored paper onlay on each cover, each book includes a stipple-engraved hand-colored frontispiece.

Books like these encouraged women to explore the natural world. The three women pictured on the box are in motion, interacting with various items discussed in the books. (Notice, too, that the “natural” items pictured are all confined and domesticated – the birds in cages, the trees in planters, and even the butterfly about to be caught – leaving this realm of nature somewhat less wild for the “gentler” sex.)

Our copies look as if their particular demoiselle was perhaps uninterested in nature – but we were delighted to find how new they looked!

(Click on the images to magnify them.)

*FC8.A100.825m. Purchased with the Andrew Oliver Book Fund and the Melvin R. Seiden Houghton Library Book Fund.

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