Gustave Flaubert warm and beautiful signed autograph letter. 1867

  

Warm and enthusiastic letter to a fellow writer. What I like about your criticism is the absence of any mannerism, any bias, any school of thought. Croisset near Rouen, August 24 [1867], to a writer; 3 pages, octavo, on blue paper.

Size: 20.8 x 26.8 cm unfolded — With magnetic plexiglass frame (included): 22.5 x 33 cm. A beautiful letter full of enthusiasm, kindness, and great human warmth, as Flaubert often showed. While Paris lives to the rhythm of the splendid 1867 Universal Exposition, Flaubert is, in this month of August, right in the middle of the work on his masterpiece: Sentimental Education. It was only the day before yesterday that I found on my desk in Paris your visiting card and your brochure. You were not expecting my reply, I am sure, to be convinced that this little work, so rich in ideas, pleases me immensely.

We both have too much in common in our aesthetic doctrines for there to be anything between us but sympathy. What an excellent foundation there is in your work.

One can see how much you have read and reflected! Do write us a great book on this question: morality in art. What a service you would render!

As for your latest work, it is not something one can discuss in a letter, since every line contains a glimpse, a horizon. I would like to see you and talk at length with you; that would be more convenient. In that case, I ask you to remember my address in Paris. I have had the pleasure of seeing you only for a few moments.

But there has been between us, it seems to me, a beginning of friendship. I ask only to continue it, dear Sir, and I beg you to accept the handshake I send you most cordially.

I shall not be in Paris until next winter. Below: Gustave Flaubert by Nadar, circa 1865.