Presented to the Founder of The Paris Review’S Predecessor
GREEN, Julien.
Journal 1946–1950. Paris, Typographie Plon, 1951.
8vo, pp. [vi], 362, [4]; occasional marginal chipping, uniformly browned as usual; else a good copy, slightly cocked, in the publisher’s printed wrappers, text in burgundy and sage green; wrappers chipped and frayed at extremities, spine browned and slightly worn; presentation inscription to half-title ‘à Monsieur Jean le Marchand, très cordialement’ (see below), printer’s prospectus loosely inserted.
Presentation copy of these diaries for 1946–50 by Julien Green, the first non-French national to join the Académie Française, who maintained a daily journal for some forty years, self-censored extensively to conceal his homosexuality, our copy presented to Jean Lemarchand, founder of the forerunner of The Paris Review.
Born Julian Hartridge Green (1900–1998) to American parents in Paris, the author spent most of his life in France, and wrote largely in French; in 1938 he began publishing his Journals, publishing two volumes before he was forced into exile by the Nazi invasion of France. He fled to New York via Portugal with his partner, Robert de Saint-Jean, during the war; the present volume covers his life immediately following his return to Paris in September 1945. In 1971 he was elected to succeed François Mauriac’s chair in the Académie Française, and in 1996 attempted (unsuccessfully and controversially) to resign, describing himself as ‘americain, exclusivement’.
Provenance:
Presented by the author to Jean Lemarchand, founder in 1948 of the journal La Table ronde, launched by the publishing house of the same name. The publishing house, thought to have been named by Jean Cocteau, was founded in 1944, and contributors to the journal included Mauriac, Henry de Montherland, Paul Morand, Stephen Spender, Max Jacob, and Jean Giono, as well as several Surrealist writers and members of the Collaboration and the Resistance. Green himself was a contributor. In late 1949 the publishing house was partially bought out by Plon, publishers of the present volume, and in September 1953 Éditions de la Table ronde published the first issue of The Paris Review.