DURAS (Marguerite).

The Sailor of Gibraltar. Paris, Gallimard, 1952. In-12, grey-white box, half-figurative and half-geometric decoration covering the field in mosaic laid down in pearl grey, taupe and anthracite box suggesting the sails of a yacht, with portraits of Jeanne Moreau and Ian Bannen printed in krause on the front and back sails and a set of ropes in blue œser, smooth spine titled in palladium, lining edge to edge in lagoon blue box decorated with a semisilvered dot drawing the map of the Strait of Gibraltar on the upper cover and the west coast of Africa, with the Strait to the north, on the lower cover, pearl grey goat velvet endpapers, steel blue head with graphite and blue oyster, untrimmed, cover and spine, African wooden box sheathed in the same grey-white box (Marina Mongin, III-2017). First edition. One of 55 copies on vellum pur fil, the only large paper. The fourth work published by Marguerite Duras, after three "youthful novels", of classical construction and in the vein of the realist novel - Les Impudents in 1943, La Vie tranquille in 1944 and Un barrage contre le Pacifique in 1950 -, Le Marin de Gibraltar marks a turning point in the author's literary practice in that it frees itself from realist codes to fit into an aesthetic close to that of the New Novel. Magnificent talking binding by Marina Mongin, evoking the themes and places of the novel as well as the main actors of its film adaptation, directed in 1967 by Tony Richardson. The volume is preserved in a luxurious box made of variegated African fraké, trimmed with grey goat velvet and covered with the same grey-white box as the binding, made by the art cabinetmaker Louis-Marie Vincent; it includes a secret sliding flap to store the enclosed autograph letter. An important autograph letter signed by Marguerite Duras to Madeleine Chapsal is indeed enclosed. [Italy] (postmark: Livorno Ferrovia), Saturday August 7 [1965]. 3 pp. in-4, with envelope addressed to Madeleine Chapsal at the home of the artist Agathe Vaito (1928-1973) at Plan du Castellet, in the Var. This very beautiful letter from Marguerite Duras to her friend Madeleine Chapsal evokes in particular the film adaptation of The Sailor of Gibraltar and the love affair between Jeanne Moreau and Tony Richardson, the main actress and director of the film, released in 1967. Dear Madeleine, your letter made me very happy. I don't know when I'll go to the south of France. I've just come back from Rome. I am leaving for Madrid. And in the meantime (I'm going or will go) to Paris. I would like to become a woman in an airplane, like that, a good woman who is not afraid of flying, I who have never done any sport, it would be a way to. I'm still a long way from that. It's the Film Productions that pay me for these trips and in Rome (as in Madrid I will do) I worked 10 hours a day. That's how much I fly. / I was happy to know you, very, very happy. [...] Jeanne [Moreau] is waiting for her story with Tony [Richardson]. And she will have it. And it will be serious. Because she wants him. And he needs that for The Sailor of Gibraltar to be a film about happiness. This "expression", I said it to Jeanne and she was enlightened because of Tony. [...] There is still the sea - the work. I don't want to work. And then, I'm separated from the sea by the via Aurelia where tons of cars pass by night and day (from a distance it's like the 24 hours of Le Mans because of the turns. The tires scream). There's no sand and I regularly break my face on the pebbles / I have to go to Prague too and then to Rome in October. That's flying too. I want to go to Jeanne's house anyway. It would be around August 27 at the earliest. Will you still be in Le Beausset? [...] / I give you a big kiss Madeleine. / Marguerite. The British director Tony Richardson (1928-1991), married to the actress Vanessa Redgrave, left her in 1967 to live for a while with Jeanne Moreau (1928-2017), whom he had directed in two films: Mademoiselle in 1966 and Le Marin de Gibraltar in 1967. Note that in July 1965, during the shooting of Mademoiselle, an interview with Jeanne Moreau by Marguerite Duras was filmed for television in the setting of Madeleine Chapsal's house in Correze. Small cut in the horizontal fold of the 2 ff., small tear in the envelope.