Les Anthologies du ‘Bulletin des amis d’André Gide’, i: Textes inédits et pages retrouvées by André Gide (review)

Pierre Masson has prefaced this first selection of texts, which appeared in the Bulletin des amis d’André Gide between 1969 and 2016, with an informative Introduction highlighting the value of what has been chosen. The items vary from articles published in out-of-the-way places to the reproduction of manuscript drafts from the archives. The notes are principally by Masson and by Claude Martin, Jean Claude, and Daniel Durosay. The earliest chosen manuscript, dating from 1900, is on the death of his wife Madeleine’s father, ‘Oncle Émile’ Rondeaux. Transpositions of this event, and its effect on the youthful Gide, are found in Les Cahiers d’André Walter and La Porte étroite, as Masson points out (p. 13). An article, inspired by a reading in 1916–17 of the translation of Edwin Dwinger’s story of a triangular love affair in Mon journal de Sibérie 1915–1918, was written out in 1935. Here Gide discusses racial prejudice: peasants in the Pays de Caux hold the Germans to be ‘assez bons gars’, whereas they consider the English (‘fiers’ and ‘distants’) to be the real invaders (p. 63). Entitled ‘Solidarité’, Gide’s reflections were thought of poorly by his friends and were consigned to a bottom drawer. There are articles on political engagement: a protest against the French protectorate in Syria in 1936; encouragement for ‘le vaillant peuple grec’ in 1940. This Anthologie is divided into four sections: ‘Souvenirs’, ‘Engagements’, ‘Littérature’, and ‘Fictions’. The first includes Gide’s reminiscences of his father Paul and Uncle Charles, together with a brief disparaging note (1922) on Arthur Cravan who had sought him out before the war. Cravan’s aunt had been married to Oscar Wilde, and Gide, before they met, had thought that Cravan might provide a model for Lafcadio. A more significant piece is Gide’s diary of the Foyer franco-belge, which Masson reprints in the second section. The third includes ‘Pourquoi j’ai traduit Antoine et Cléopâtre’ (1920), which is interesting insofar as it is really a puff for his adaptation of Shakespeare’s play and for Ida Rubinstein’s performance. In ‘Voyage en littérature anglaise’ (1938), Gide describes his discovery of the English books which meant the most to him. There is also his 1939 preface to Les Liaisons dangereuses, which situates Laclos’s novel in the context of his admiration for Richardson’s Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison. The commentary and note here are by Anton Alblas. A substantial ‘Défense de la langue française’, concerned with points of style and linguistic ‘correctness’, was originally published in Le Figaro littéraire in 1946 and 1947. The fourth section, ‘Fictions’, is arguably the most valuable of all: Masson reprints manuscript drafts of sections of La Porte étroite; a manuscript version of Le Roi Candaule, which was designed to be an operatic version of the play; a manuscript fragment of Les Faux-Monnayeurs, where Édouard faces the Dadaists; and, finally, large sections of the 1936 version of the play, Robert, ou L’Intérêt général. All these elements are now made conveniently available to a wider public and are most welcome.