Yesterday I was susprised to read the news that Marcel Proust's
(1871-1922) collection of more than 120 photographs, intimate letters, handwritten books and other items were being sold at auction in Paris.
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| Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons |
Among the items was an original signed edition of Swann's Way, the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past. After
Proust's death in 1922 the collection passed to his brother Robert, but now a great-great-niece is selling the items at Sotheby's auction house. There are boyhood photos of Proust and Man Ray's image of him on his deathbed. One
of the photos, dated 1896, shows Proust with his secret lover Lucien Daudet. Proust's mother had ordered him to destroy all copies of it. There
is also a letter from Proust to another lover, the pianist Reynaldo Hahn, whom he describes as "really the person who, besides mummy, I love
most of all in the world".
The collection, put up for auction by Patricia Mante-Proust, is valued at between €520,000 (£396,000; $580,000) and €740,000.
I have told before, burn your letters -or not, they might make your family rich.
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