Colette’s Mes apprentissages
Jul 3rd, 2013 by houghtonmodern
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.
The novelist and music-hall performer Colette (1873-1954; full name Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) is known both for her literary work – principally the novel Gigi – and her love affairs with men, women, and in one case, her own stepson. Mes apprentissages, published in 1936, is one of several autobiographical works in which Colette recounts her fascinating life; specifically, this volume deals with her first marriage, to Henry Gauthier-Villars, known as “Willy”. Gauthier-Villars was a writer and critic who acted as Colette’s mentor; her first several novels were first published under his name. Mes apprentissages excoriates Gauthier-Villars as controlling, patronizing, and unfaithful.
While this copy of Mes apprentissages is one of a limited number on Holland paper and is handsomely bound in morocco and marbled paper by Alain Devauchelle, it is most remarkable for containing several pieces of manuscript correspondence written by Colette to various parties. These include two letters to Pierre Louÿs, a French writer who dealt unabashedly in erotic, and particularly lesbian, themes; and a postcard to Émilie Marie Bouchaud, an actress who worked under the stage name Polaire. Polaire’s breakthrough role was in the title role of a play based on Colette’s Claudine à Paris, produced during Colette’s marriage to Gauthier-Villars.
Colette. Mes apprentissages: ce que Claudine n’a pas dit. [Paris]: Ferenczi, c1936. FC9.C6796.936m.
Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.