André GIDE – Signed letter to the writer Louis-Raymond Lefèvre.

André Gide (1869.1951).

Letter signed to the writer Louis-Raymond Lefèvre.

One page in quarto. Paris. June 26, 1928.

“Dear friend, Just a quick note, just to shake your hand in passing. I'm leaving Paris in a few days and I'm afraid I won't be able to find the time to see you before then, as I'm terribly busy. I urgently need rest and quiet work. Don't worry about Baylac. Take your time. The important thing is to know that he interests you and that you're not looking at his notebooks reluctantly. But, naturally, this task must give way to other, more pressing matters. I received a very kind letter from the Netherlands (I can't quite remember who it was from), thanks to your intervention, and I replied immediately (I don't recall if it was from Mrs. Gelikowsky). But here I am, for various reasons, forced to postpone this trip. These initial steps will nonetheless be useful later, and I'm carefully keeping all the letters and information concerning the Dutch East Indies in a separate file, to use them when the time comes. ”

Gide mentions the case of the notebooks of Jean Pierre Baylac, a young shepherd who died at the age of 20, an erotomaniac and zoophile. He recorded his actions daily, leaving behind some sixty notebooks and approximately twenty thousand pages. Gide employed Lefèvre to transcribe and type these notebooks, which he intended to publish in a small edition, on the advice of François Paul Alibert and Roger Martin du Gard.