Valery LARBAUD (1881-1957). L.A.S., February 6, 1925, to Fré - Lot 480

Valery LARBAUD (1881-1957). L.A.S., February 6, 1925, to Frédéric Lefèvre; 4pages small in-4 on blue paper at his address 71, rue du Cardinal-Lemoine. Ve. Au sujet des écrivains anglais. [Writer and critic Frédéric Lefèvre (1889-1949), editor of Nouvelles Littéraires, was famous for his "Une heure avec" interviews]. He has just sent Lefèvre his new book Ce vice impuni, la lecture... He is going to write to Arnold Bennett to recommend Lefèvre. ". I wonder where I stand with the English literary people I know personally: my attitude to [Joyce's] Ulysses must have indisposed or chilled a number of them; and what I did for Butler put me rather badly with Edmund Gosse, I've heard. It's unfortunate that H.F. Jones is unwell at the moment. He would also have introduced you to some interesting circles. Edith Sitwell, without whom your English "An hour with..." would not be complete, is in Paris at the moment [...] What a pity you didn't tell me, some time in advance, that you were going to England. I would have prepared as much as possible for your interviews with these friends. But you must have seen that you were known to most of our English colleagues, and that they knew very well what a visit from you would mean for their reputation on the Continent". Then Larbaud comments on Lefèvre's interview with Frank Swinnerton: "I had forgotten the incident with Bennett's yacht; it 'did something' to me to find it there, and in my memory. I was so happy in London before the war! I doubt I'll ever be able to find such tranquillity again. For often (but this is entirely between us) I would pretend to my friends and acquaintances that I had arrived a few days ago, when in fact I had been here for two months! You'll see in my Vice impuni... that as early as 1908 I had published a long note on Thos. Hardy, which Swinnerton told you about". G. Jean-Aubry could have introduced Lefèvre better than he did. "But then again, they surely know who you are, even when they don't admit it; the opinion of the Continent matters to them much more than they let on. Especially as they know that there's a trend at the moment to 'write down' England and English literature. If you go to Scotland, see Saintsbury"...