117 - CELINE, Louis-Ferdinand: Prison Notebooks (February–October 1946). An exceptional collection of handwritten notebooks composed by Louis Ferdinand CELINE during his imprisonment at the West Prison in Copenhagen following his journey through Europe at the end of the war and his arrest on December 17, 1945. A set of school notebooks, each containing 32 lined pages, provided by the prison administration to any inmate wishing to write. Some volumes include a handwritten label bearing the inmate’s name and cell number (84). The collection is bound into a single volume in 8° red long-grain half-morocco, with a faded spine. Written in pencil with numerous cross-outs and additions. Both in content and form, these manuscripts are unique within the writer’s body of work and constitute the last manuscripts to come up for public auction. More than 300 pages of raw writing, a continuous sequence of facts without any concern for style, the writing entirely focused on stating the facts. The writer reflects on his exodus from France, his experience in prison, and his thirst for reading. Calling upon the great writers who struggled to break away from the conventions of their time, he exclaims, “To me, Descartes!

CELINE, Louis-Ferdinand: Prison Notebooks (February–October 1946). An exceptional collection of handwritten notebooks composed by Louis Ferdinand CELINE during his imprisonment at the West Prison in Copenhagen following his journey through Europe at the end of the war and his arrest on December 17, 1945. A set of school notebooks, each containing 32 lined pages, provided by the prison administration to any inmate wishing to write. Some volumes include a handwritten label bearing the inmate’s name and cell number (84). The collection is bound into a single volume in 8° red long-grain half-morocco, with a faded spine. Written in pencil with numerous cross-outs and additions. Both in content and form, these manuscripts are unique within the writer’s body of work and constitute the last manuscripts to come up for public auction. More than 300 pages of raw writing, a continuous sequence of facts without any concern for style, the writing entirely focused on stating the facts. The writer reflects on his exodus from France, his experience in prison, and his thirst for reading. Calling upon the great writers who struggled to break away from the conventions of their time, he exclaims, “To me, Descartes! To me, Voltaire! To me, Chateaubriand! To me, Hugo!” Throughout the pages, he quotes writers and songs, sketches out his defense, describes his prison life, and recalls London, Brittany, and Paris. And Lucette Destouches, the tireless companion ever-present throughout the pages. An extraordinary and moving document which, in the words of Maître François GIBAULT at the conclusion of the introduction to these notebooks published in 2019 by Gallimard, “an exceptional document in which one of the central themes is the repeated affirmation of the misfortune of being an artist, of being a lyricist… while preparing to embark on his second narrative and stylistic revolution.” This raw material would also enable the writer to begin drafting his “German trilogy.”