Léon DAUDET (1867-1942) Autograph manuscript signed, Sébastien Gouvès, contemporary novel, 1898; 449 fol. pages in autograph dust jacket. Complete manuscript of this novel, published by Fasquelle in 1899. It "depicts a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Montpellier who becomes head of a laboratory at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, thanks to the support of a Jew, Éphraïm Mercier. While Mercier tries to steal his discovery, his daughter Marianne becomes the mistress of an old magistrate"... (F. Broche). Marcel Proust praised this "admirable book": "It seems to me that with each book you become more objective, which is the sincerest way for you to be subjective; for your thought faces at once the whole of nature, and to embody all your ideas is to describe nature". The manuscript is signed at the end and dated November 14, 1898; it is written in black ink on the front pages, with erasures and corrections; it is paginated in blue pencil. The first leaf bears a dedication to Paul Mariéton, "to the delicate and profound poet to the visionary scholar to the upholder of the traditions and language of Provence"...