Marcel ROUFF. Typescript with autograph corrections and addi - Lot 248

Marcel ROUFF. Typescript with autograph corrections and additions, Guinoiseau ou Le Moyen de ne pas parvenir; 336pages in-4 (some edges chipped). Highly corrected typescript of the novel inspired by the character of Curnonsky. The novel was published by Stock in 1926. Let's quote from the blurb (2 copies enclosed): "With Guinoiseau ou Le Moyen de ne pas parvenir, we're dealing with a much more arduous endeavor than the one that led Marcel Rouff to Dodin-Bouffant: the naturally Olympian character of the Gastronome is succeeded by the complex humor of the Bohemian, and the representative of a refined voluptuousness by that of a sick century. For this novel of an extravagant existence is at once the portrait of an era. A novel with a bunch of keys, if it's true that Guinoiseau is none other than one of our most famous humorists (the name Curnonsky is pronounced, and the book's dedication to Mon vieux Cur is not intended to dismiss this hypothesis, although it does pretend to do so); A key-ring novel, even, if most of the other characters it so piquantly brings to life are actually the leaders of the literary team between the wars, from Verlaine to Moréas, via Toulet, La Jeunesse, Willy and so on. The whole of yesterday, the age of absinthe, smoky brasserie gatherings, girls in socks and the cancan, is brought to life in a brilliantly-worded account, revealing its secret despair as a period of transition underneath the jokes and irony. The author picturesquely captures its aspects; he also notes its psychology, made up of impulses, questions, depressions, deliberately repressed sentimentality, intellectual doubts - and it's the confession of a generation that searched for itself in vain and is only now experiencing its misery and downgrading. Amusing as a Rabelaisian fantasy, but true and moving as a historical and social document whose riches the future will appreciate!" The typescript, which comprises 19 chapters and was used for printing, is abundantly corrected, with numerous autograph additions, either interlinear or in the margins, or by glued-on blocks; long passages are crossed out in red pencil. Among the autograph additions is the dedication at the top of the first page: "I would have liked to dedicate this book to you, my old Cur, had I not feared that too many people would persist in recognizing you. M.R." On an attached autograph leaf, Rouff noted: "Pour la Bibliothèque d'Angers, l'histoire d'un de ses plus glorieux fils, d'ailleurs bien modifiée à l'impression".