Jean DESBORDES (1906-1944). Two autograph manuscripts and on - Lot 70

Jean DESBORDES (1906-1944). Two autograph manuscripts and one corrected typescript, Les Forcenés, 1937. Complete working manuscript of Desbordes' second novel, with corrected typescript and cleaned-up manuscript. Les Forcenés was published by Gallimard in 1937. A reprint of this largely autobiographical novel was published in 1922 by Interstices, with this introduction: "Blanche, a middle-class woman from a provincial town, falls in love with Georges, a young soldier whose mother she could be. This unbalanced, destructive love will take them to the edge of the society that condemns them, and to the limits of their own reason. Secluded in their deadly love, the madmen isolate themselves in a wild and tragic Provence, marking their rejection of all human society as hypocritical and pernicious." Working draft, abundantly crossed out and corrected; this draft presents numerous and important variants with the definitive text: - 48 ff in-4 (28.5 x 22 cm), mostly recto-verso, plus one in-8 page inserted, corresponding to the first part of the novel, here divided into 6 chapters (4 in the edition), including the actual prologue; in the margin of the 1st page, long note for the typist Mme Fiquet; plus 12 sheets of drafts for the sequel. - Part 2 La campagne, small in-4 schoolbook (22.5 x 17 cm) with 81 pages, plus 1 in-8 page inserted. At the end of the notebook, a "Note from the author" intended for the end of the book, but not retained in the edition: "I knew these forcenés. The search for love and the will to love drove them to live on the bangs of life, in that heroic and criminal shadow zone that shelters so many couples of lovers. One passion consumed them: the fear of disappointing each other, but only in terms of the competition for love. There are many who have no other concerns. Their rebellions, their youth, their honesty, their scruples, their tastes and the task they had to perform on earth, they converted into strength, into calories, for the sole purpose of their desperate pursuit. They died of it. It remains to be seen whether these cruel monsters are not everyone." First draft notes on 4 envelopes (8 p. in-12) are enclosed. Corrected typescript with qqs. autograph ff. inserted, complete (in-4), paginated 1-174 with ff. bis or ter; intended title (noted in pencil at head) is Les Maudits. Numerous corrections and additions, often highly developed on added autograph leaves. At the end, a prescription from Dr. Marcel Barbot in Marseille (16.V.36) and a pencil drawing (nude man with back). Complete manuscript, carefully cleaned up after the edition (Desbordes even copied the "achevé d'imprimer"), in an orange hardback notebook (29 x 19 cm), red cloth spine (153 p.). The title page bears this dispatch: "Pour Chrystabel, Frantz et Pierre Thomassin, de tout son cœur reconnaissant. Jean Desbordes".