Letters of Marcel Proust to Antoine Bibesco
‘Antoine Bibesco is the only person who understands me’ (Marcel Proust)
PROUST, Marcel; BIBESCO, Antoine (Ed.); HOPKINS, Gerald (Trans.) Letters of Marcel Proust to Antoine Bibesco. London: Thames and Hudson, 1953.
First edition limited to 500 copies. This is copy number 342. Signed by the translator. All but two of the letters collected in this book were edited by Antoine Bibesco, and were for the first time published here in English. The correspondence covers the period from 1902 to 1920. Also contains some pertinent letters of Proust to Princesse de Caraman-Chimay, and to Antoine’s brother, Emmanuel Bibesco.
Antoine Bibesco (1878-1951) was a Romanian prince and diplomat, with deep links to France and Britain. He was one of Proust’s closest friends, and an inspiration for Robert de Saint Loup, the narrator’s best friends in the seminal À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (1913-1927). Bibesco married the English socialite, Elizabeth Asquith (1897-1945), daughter of the H.H. Asquith, the British Prime Minister.
169 pp, b/w portrait frontis, 7 b/w plates. Very good in dust-jacket.
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