Modern times
The great 20th-century break with poetical and intellectual tradition was pioneered by Rimbaud, Mallarmé and Valéry. Works of all three are on display in the permanent exhibition.
Rimbaud: autograph manuscripts of the Comedy of Thirst (1872), a first edition of Illuminations (1886), Poésies complètes, prefaced by Verlaine (1895)
Mallarmé: a first edition of Afternoon of a Faun, 1876. Embellished with a frontispiece and an ex libris by Manet, and including an autograph for Claude Debussy
Valéry: 1894 autograph manuscript of An Evening with Mr. Teste presented by the author to Martin Bodmer, whom he referred to as ‘the friend of books and of the author’
Other precursors were:
Cendrars: Prose of the Trans-Siberian and the ‘simultaneous compositions’ of Sonia Delauney (1913)
Apollinaire, superbly displayed at the back of the cabinet: The Rotting Enchanter of 1909, including a woodcut by Derain and signed by the authors, Alcohols, with a frontispiece by Picasso (1913)
Rilke: Sonnets to Orpheus – autograph manuscript of 1922 and a first edition of 1923, handwritten copy of translation for Baladine of Valéry’s Graveyard by the Sea
Borges
It was during this period that the Nouvelle Revue Française and the Gallimard publishing house started up with writers like Gide, Claudel and Proust. All feature in the collection:
Gide: handwritten notes for the Vatican Cellers, first edition of Paludes (1930)
Claudel: The Hostage (1911), with the famous Gallimard book cover
Proust: first corrected proofs of In Search of Lost Time and first edition of 1913
It was a prolific period in terms of both output and experience that would revolutionize writing and language:
Kafka: Metamorphosis (1915)
Joyce: Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939)
Musil: The Man without Qualities (1930)
Céline: Journey to the End of the Night (1932)
Michaux: Meidosems (1948)
The Foundation recently acquired a number of autograph manuscripts by Borges dating 1939-1953, as well as the first edition of Fictions (1944), the Book of Sand (1945) and The Aleph (1949)
Borges (close-up)
The interwar period was the golden age of the North American novel. It set the trend for a new way of writing, which reflected the impact and pressure of a world in constant flux:
Dos Passos: USA Trilogy, which includes The 42nd Parallel (1930)
Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury (1929) and Sanctuary (1931)
Huxley: Brave New World
Hemingway: Farewell to Arms (1929)
Thirty years later the Beat Generation in the United States was pioneered by:
Kerouac: On the Road (1957)
Ginsberg: Reality Sandwiches (1963)
A display cabinet is devoted to playwrights of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It contains a number of first editions, including:
Strindberg: Mademoiselle Julie (1888)
Ibsen: A Doll’s House (1879)
Pirandello: Liolà (1917)
Claudel: autograph manuscript of The Satin Slipper (1921-24)
Brecht: In the Jungle of Cities (1927)
Cocteau: The Infernal Machine (1934)
Giraudoux: The Trojan War Will Not Take Place (1935)
Montherlant: The Dead Queen (1942)
Beckett: Waiting for Godot (1952)
Genet: The Balcony (1956)
Ionesco: Rhinoceros (1959)
Frisch: The Fire Raisers (1958)
Bernhard: The Force of Habit (1974)
Dürrenmatt: autograph manuscript of the Minotaur (1985)
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