Raymond QUENEAU Signed Autograph Letter Pléiade Gallimard

  

Queneau, overloaded, is preparing the release of the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade. A charming letter with the envelope and stamp retained bearing the NRF letterhead.

An autographed letter signed by Raymond Queneau (1903 - 1976) to Bert de Gryse, a future great jurist and lawyer, then a member of a literature circle at the prestigious Catholic University of Louvain. One page on NRF (Nouvelle Revue Française) letterhead. The envelope and stamp are retained with the letterhead of the Gallimard bookstore and the NRF. The address is handwritten by Queneau. There are small paper losses at the left corners.

In November 1955, Raymond Queneau is the general secretary of Gallimard publishing and is going through a period of relative creative and professional overload. The projects he mentions in this letter correspond to significant undertakings. The release of the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade (February 1956) is the most imposing project. In 1954, Queneau was appointed by Gaston Gallimard as the director of this new collection. The goal is to create a modern encyclopedia, not alphabetical but thematic.

This work is exhausting for him: he must coordinate dozens of specialists, revise the indexes, and supervise the technical production. The film Queneau refers to in the letter is Luis Buñuel's La Mort en ce jardin (released in 1956). Queneau collaborated on the screenplay and dialogues alongside Buñuel and Gabriel Arout.

Finally, concurrently, Queneau began writing "Zazie dans le métro" in April 1955, which he is still working on at the time of writing this letter. Your kind letter is very nice, but I cannot accept. I do not know how to give a lecture, speak in public, etc. I will not have time this year with the release of the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade in February, a film I am working on, the Gallimard house, etc.

And believe, Sir, in the expression of my best feelings. Below, Raymond Queneau in 1954 by Boris Lipnitzki (Galerie Roger-Viollet).