Honoré de BALZAC Signed Autographed Letter. The Publication of the Human Comedy

  

The Autographes des Siècles bookstore has been specializing in the sale of autograph letters and manuscripts for many years. Signed autograph letter to Jacques-Julien Dubochet. Four pages in-8° on water green paper. Correspondance Pléiade, tome III, n° 44-3, pp 188.189.

"The eleven volumes published will be. The first eleven of La Comédie humaine. Important letter to Dubochet - one of the four publishers of La Comédie humaine with Pierre-Jules Hetzel, Alexandre Paulin and Charles Furne - testifying to Balzac's editorial troubles. Interrupted since November 1843, the delivery service of La Comédie humaine resumed only in January 1844. Balzac complains to Dubochet and entrusts his letter to Hetzel, a partner in the venture, to whom he writes the same day, informing him of the support that Victor Hugo gives him.

"My dear Dubochet, As nothing should prevent the resumption of the deliveries of La Comédie humaine from today Friday 5 in eight, Friday, January 12, please send a short note to all those who take the deliveries, worded as follows. De Balzac has caused a temporary interruption in the delivery of La Comédie humaine.

But this interruption has been taken advantage of by the Publishers who have agreed with the author to fill the two gaps that existed in the order of the volumes. Thus, after publishing volumes 10 and 11 (2 and 3 of Scenes from Parisian life) they will be able to publish volume 7 3. Scenes from provincial life and volume 4 4. Scenes from private life, so that after the publication of these 4 volumes, the eleven volumes published will be the first eleven of La Comédie humaine." The public and the claimants will thus know that the project is not abandoned and I will no longer receive letters from people who take pleasure in bothering me under the veil of anonymity. It was me who predicted that the public would accept this publication as a very serious matter and that it would eventually see it as a story instead of novels. I have seven volumes of new works to do, to publish and to place either in newspapers or in bookstores so that the two volumes that are missing are completed. There are delays for them to be published either in newspapers or in bookstores - but they must be made. Now, for example, to make the 15 missing sheets for volume VII, Mr. Plon must have finished volume X, and his character must be employed in my novel. [printer] had, for two months, manufactured volume XI, he could compose for me on volume IV, manuscripts that would be ready for newspapers. I repeat to you, my dear Dubochet, that not only are you stopping the business, but you are depriving me of the means to facilitate the placement of the 4 works that I have to publish. I entrust this letter to Hetzel so that you can confer with him. It is unimaginable that when, a difficulty foreseen by me during your first intentions which was to sell separate volumes, once recognized by you, arouses my concern to the point of making me do unheard-of work of composing 4 new works, instead of working on The Peasants which are composed, on the Pathology of social life, etc.

that it is you who are obstructing me. The day you want to publish in the 10th page of newspapers, as a prospectus, the 2 introduction sheets I made, you will see what you will sell of the first 12 volumes! So, I demand once again, and this will be the last, your will, your activity that have been more than promised to me (it is a written article) to finish Plon's volume, and to quickly advance Langrand. The 1st volume of Scenes from political life will be a necessary appetizer to meet the deadlines of new publications, and believe me, my dear Dubochet, that I am arranging and working at the moment to surprise those who might believe me dead, or extinct or weakened. The Studies of customs will have 16 volumes, one more than the 15 promised.

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