COCTEAU Jean

Lot 61
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Estimation :
15000 - 20000 EUR
COCTEAU Jean
Autograph MANUSCRIT,[The Infernal Machine], 1932; 90 sheets in-fol. in sheets and 63 sheets in 2 notebooks cardboard-backed in-fol. under shirt with canvas-backed title in coloured pencils by Serge Lifar. A precious first draft manuscript of this famous piece in four acts, a masterpiece in which Cocteau gives his personal vision of the myth of Oedipus. It is the only existing manuscript, whereas the manuscript (put in the net?) would have been destroyed by Marie-Laure de Noailles in a jealousy crisis at the time of Cocteau's affair with Natalie Paley. This Lifar manuscript remained unknown to the publishers of the Complete Theatre in the Library of the Pleiades. After having given a "free adaptation after Sophocles" by OEdipe-Roi (1925, published in 1928) and the libretto by OEdipus Rex for Stravinsky (1927), Cocteau wrote this play in four acts from 1930 to 1932, which will be staged by Louis Jouvet at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées on 10 April 1934, in sets and costumes by Christian Bérard, with Jean-Pierre Aumont as OEdipe; it will be published the same year by Grasset. This manuscript is dated at the end:"[Paris crossed out] Chablis 1930 - St Mandrier 1932", and on the cover of the last notebook "finished on August 18, 1932". It is extensively mispronounced and corrected, and presents important variations with the final text. Acts I and II (incomplete) do not have a title here. It should be noted that this manuscript does not include the interventions of "La Voix", which Cocteau later decided to add, and will later record on disc for broadcast during the performance. [Act I. The Ghost]. 78 sheets (28.5 x 22 cm) written on the front side on 3 different types of paper, including 34 on Japanese paper (1-20, 61-67, 72-78) and 4 on grey drawing paper (68-71), the last double sheet serving as a folder. The first 20 sheets are written in black ink, the following in pencil; sheet 21 and the beginning of the following one (marked a and b)
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