Highly desirable collection of ten lengthy ALSs in French, signed “A. Dumas,” totaling 63 pages, dated between 1845 and 1877. All are to his lifelong friend and French poet Joseph Autran, discussing his health, his works, politics, his love with Mrs. Poussin, his famous father, literature, theatre, the French Academie, and more.
June 18, 1845: “I've not answered to you earlier because of a thousand businesses, the play of my father first...Make wish for the sun come, dear friend, and rely upon me. I will do everything in the world to reach you...Say a lot of good things to our friends...tell me about everything and especially you. The play of daddy Dumas succeeded.”
October 2, 1845, written by Mrs. Puissin and then Dumas: “Daddy Dumas is collaborating with Jules Lacroix, a piece that will probably be played at the French [Theater]. Alexander says it will be great...Alexander is working a novel that will be well done and very interesting, we will read it this winter...I leave some place in this letter for Alexander.” Dumas’s message follows, in part: “I still like you and as a proof of my love, I send you a short poem: The Snowflake that the Reformation / has just launched its power, / will marry one day / a Venus of sidewalk.”
September 2, 1848, on the wedding of his mistress: “Letters are strange things and they often come in strange circumstances...ten minutes before your letter arrived, a great transformation had taken place in my life regarding Mrs. Poussin. Great sorrow and great happiness were sent by Providence... She's getting married. She married a man...who told her honestly and simply, ‘I know you like Mr. Dumas, but I love you. I know you are with him for two years, so I'm not asking to be your lover... I offer you my name.’ She refused. But I did what I had to do, telling him that if she doesn't agree to marry him, I quit her, I, who do not want or can not give him my name... The sacrifice was hard to do...She will be very happy and I become now master of my own life.”
1849/1850: “The body of Parisians is momentarily shared as followed: feet in the mud, belly epidemics, and head to rain, snow...About our morale, it is swinging between Adrienne Lecouvreur [a play by Eugène Scribe] which is a bad play, and that socialism which looks like another bad play...As for me...I work a lot...I'm working on the history of our four restorations [the Back of the Royalty]. God bless the Republic, so it forces us to remember the monarchy. Which makes me fear that the Republic will not last, it's the evil that we talked about, and the money won by those who criticize the Republic...I find that there is too much politics in my letter and not enough friendship. Forgive me.”
July 23, 1866: “Here I am in Saint Valery en Caux...I come with the intention of working until mid-September...Here is what my program is. Run by two next months the four acts that I have to write. The first is almost done.”
March 25, 1867: “Give me your news as soon as you get better and that the first use of your eyes and your pen will be to tell me your good news about your health. Stop smoking, remove the cigar. Your eyes heal completely...Have faith and you will have the strength. The first copy of Madame Aubrey will be posted to Montgrand street. This is a very long letter to a man who can not read, but the heart guesses what the eyes do not see, and as it is written by my heart, your heart will read.”
November 11, 1872: “I 've not answered right now because I was overloaded with work...I get visits as a Minister, we just ask me two or three times per week to save France.”
May 12, 1874, after his nomination into the French Academy: “I had already read your poems in Le Contemporain... you have never been better. I find these to a new range...I find your usual grace...You cannot know how much the comedy of speech is boring me. I have a lot to say and am not prepared to say so please everyone... but now, I'm in [the Académie].”
November 27, 1876: “Here I have again, more than ever, the desire to slap their theaters upside down. The Great Art, which should civilize people, has now fallen in the hands of such buffons...Women who best represent the passion are those who feel the least.”
June 7, 1877, following the death of Joseph Autran, written to his widow: “I do not think it [her husband’s final work] should be published at the end of June. There will be no political crisis...we still believe in something that does not happen...Things will go with remarkable tranquility that we will finally think some of the things of the spirit. So...put the publication in the fall....There is, in the memories we leave our dead, something I do not know, something which is alive, even endless, that will not leave you anymore...I will be there to inform those who want to speak publicly about him...I will talk with all my heart and all my sincerity.” In overall fine condition. Accompanied by all original mailing envelopes. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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