Marcel Jouhandeau - Lot de 6 livres en édition original de Marcel Jouhandeau - 1939

For the great enthusiast of French literature.


Set of 6 books in original edition by Marcel Jouhandeau.

- In Praise of Pleasure - Paris, Gallimard, 1951 - 128 pages - edition no. 58 (vélin pur fil)

- requiem et lux - Paris, Gallimard, 1939 - 93 pp. - ex. no. 77

Leonara or the dangers of virtue - Paris, La Passerelle, 1951 - 106 pages - ex. no. 248 (pure Johannot paper)

- to be inimitable - Paris, Gallimard, 1964 - 291 pages - edition number 103 (pure vellum Lafuma-Navarre)

- The paths of adolescence - Paris, Gallimard, 1958 - 173 pages - ex. no. 49 (pure Lafuma-Navarre vellum)

- The Argonauts - Paris, Bernard Grasset, 1959 - 190 pages - edition 89 (pure linen vellum)

Condition: excellent

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Marcel Jouhandeau, born in Guéret (Creuse) on July 26, 1888, and died in Rueil-Malmaison (Hauts-de-Seine) on April 7, 1979, was a French writer.

Son of Anne Alexandrine Marie Blanchet (1861-1936) and Pierre Paul Jouhandeau (1860-1930), born to a butcher father in a trading family from Guéret located on rue de la Mairie (now rue de l'Ancienne Mairie), Marcel Henri Paul Jouhandeau was raised until the age of nine by his aunt Alexandrine. Marked on his face by a lip deformity, from a young age — influenced by a young girl (Jeanne Martin) who had been a novice at the Carmel of Limoges — he turned towards mystical Catholicism and considered entering the seminary.

Following a reading in 1908, he becomes aware of his latent homosexuality and, much later, among his lovers, he will count Michel Leiris. That same year, he moves to Paris, studies for a few months at Lycée Henri-IV, then at the Faculty of Arts. He then writes his first stories. He becomes a teacher at the private collège Saint-Jean-de-Passy starting in January 1913.

His homosexuality then conflicted with his Catholic faith, and throughout his life, he oscillated between celebrating the male body and experiencing a mortifying sexuality, to the point that in February 1914, in a mystical surge, he burned all his manuscripts and attempted to commit suicide. After the crisis, he returned to writing, following the advice of, in particular, his friend Léon Laveine. He wrote what he called tales; these are chronicles inspired by his hometown of Guéret, which he named Chaminadour.

During the First World War, he was assigned to auxiliary service and posted at the rear as a secretary in Guéret. He published La Jeunesse de Théophile in 1921 and, in 1924, Les Pincengrain. These texts provoked strong hostility from the people of Guéret towards him.

He married at forty, on June 4, 1929, in Paris, with a former dancer, Élisabeth Toulemon, known as Caryathis, Elise in her work. A friend of Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob, she had been Charles Dullin's mistress. Elise hoped to divert her husband from his inclinations towards boys, but during the 1930s, they would again take over him and ultimately dominate his life. He openly discusses this in various works such as Chronicle of a Passion, Pure Love, and Tiresias.

The Jouhandeau family lives in Paris near Porte Maillot. His books are published by Gallimard (seven titles with Grasset following a quarrel with Gaston). He was a Latin teacher for 37 years to ensure his financial security alongside his literary work, and he retired in July 1949.

From 1936 to 1941, he wrote four anti-Semitic articles, three of which were collected in a booklet, Le Péril juif, published by Sorlot. In 1941, he participated in the 'Weimar Congress' (organized by Goebbels) at the invitation of Gerhard Heller. He was accompanied by Abel Bonnard, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, Brasillach, Fabre-Luce, Chardonne, Fraigneau, Fernandez. In December 1941, Jouhandeau published Témoignage, a short article in which he expressed his admiration for Germany, in Drieu's La NRF. After the Liberation, his file was closed without further action. In his Journaliers, a lengthy chronicle spanning 28 volumes, he revisited this period of his work multiple times.

In May 1944, Élise Jouhandeau denounced Jean Paulhan to the Gestapo as a 'Jew,' and Bernard Groethuysen as a 'communist.' Marcel Jouhandeau thus warned Paulhan about his wife's act: 'What I love most in the world has denounced what I love most in the world [reference needed].'

Around 1949, the Jouhandeau family takes in a girl, Céline. Her education is a failure. When she comes of age, she gives birth to a boy, Marc, whom the Jouhandeaus will adopt (the father has gone back to Italy, abandoning mother and child). It is ultimately the old Jouhandeau (over 80 years old) who will take care of Marc: the child is omnipresent in the last Journaliers and becomes the reason for the old author's life.

In 1950, he joined the Friends of Robert Brasillach Association.

Roger Peyrefitte describes him several times in his novels under the transparent pseudonym of Marcel Jouvenceau. This character, having been portrayed in Les Juifs as an anti-Semite, led Jouhandeau to file a complaint against the author, but he was dismissed.

Élise Jouhandeau died in 1971. This infernal couple holds an important place in the work.

Deafened by blindness, Marcel Jouhandeau stopped writing in 1974. He dedicated his final years to his grandson Marc and died of stomach cancer in 1979 in Rueil-Malmaison, his home since 1960.

Jouhandeau is a prolific author, with a literary output that is mostly autobiographical and comprises around 120 books, although his work can be considered repetitive and uneven by critics. A readers' association has been established.

Marcel Jouhandeau's diarists have had many followers in posterity who follow the same pattern: Jean-Patrick Manchette, Mathieu Galey, Renaud Camus, Pascal Sevran, who cites him as his reference author along with Jacques Chardonne, Yann Moix, Patrick Sansano, Mathieu François du Bertrand (see Wikipedia).