Les Grands hommes de la France Championnet, 1881, Lycée Condorcet school prize inscribed by a young Proust note
"To Doctor
Mirza Irymed-Abedine
Khan Moïnol-Abebha
Private physician
of His Imperial Highness
Crown Prince of Persia
in respectful
and most sympathetic gratitude for
his kind gift
Marcel Proust."
La Revue Blanche (Vol V July-August 1893)
To Laure Hayman:
"To Madame Laure Hayman (the printed dedication - that out of tact was not made more direct - should prove to her the constant reminder of her servant - who, to her, is quite forgotten - he has all too clear signs of it!). Very respectfully, Marcel Proust."
Un Dimanche au Conservatoire (Published in Le Gaulois 14 January 1895)
To Lucien Daudet:
"To Monsieur Lucien Daudet, in memory of the Duke of Richmond and of the pink carnations. His devoted Marcel Proust."
Mensonges (Manuscript? Source uncertain)
1895
À Léon Delafosse :
"To Léon Delafosse who, more marvellously than King Midas who changed everything into gold, changes everything into harmony, even the most sordid of verses, through his inspiration and through his magical fingers. Marcel Proust."
La Mort de Baldassare Silvande(Published in la Revue hebdomadaire 26 October 1895)
To Madame Georges de Porto-Riche:
"To Madame de Porto-Riche, in the absurd hope that a true
aim and a word endured, mingles our dreams for a moment.
A friend of your son's,
Marcel Proust."
Portraits de peintres
To Reynaldo Hahn [?]:
"Quis nobis Deus haec otia fecit? [Which God hath
granted us this ease?]
Sending him my most respectful thanks, in the only way I know, with Songs.
His grateful and devoted friend,
Marcel Proust."
To Pierre Lavallée:
"To Pierre Lavallée Poet and musician this poetry devoid of music and this music full of poetry. Your grateful friend (Saturday 20 March) Marcel Proust."
To Clément de Maugny:
"To my friend Clément de Maugny. In grateful remembrance. Marcel Proust."
Sentiments filiaux d'un parricide - Le Figaro, 1 Feb 1907, bound into a small volume by Daniel Halévy
To Daniel Halévy: [Letter-dedication]
"I am trying remember everything I know about the Van
Blarenberghes. She was an old relative of Mama's; they must have first
met, many years ago, at the house of an old reactionary lady who used to
say: "Can you believe it my dear that Thiers wanted nothing less than to
sell off our borders! Had we not realized in time we wouldn't have had any
of our borders left. Don't we send people to the guillotine every day who
have done less than that?" And on another occasion she sneered: "People
claim that Jules Simon wants to put himself up for the Académie. Jules
Simon at the Académie! Oh we are living in a time when nothing should
surprise us any more." From what Mama told me about her Madame Van
Blarenberghe was much more intelligent and well-informed. But she said all
the same something about "things being as they are" and talked about
Madame Reille, who was her cousin. She would come to our house to make her
annual visit and Mama, while saying a lot of good things about her, would
tell me, laughingly, all about it, putting us in perfect harmony of
feeling in our appreciation of the ridiculousness of reactionaries - and
even more so of the radicals and in our judgements on all those things -
which was an opportunity for us to love each other even more and I would
throw myself into her arms. She would push me away thinking that such
things were ridiculous, and with a desire to toughen my heart for the day
when I would have to carry on without her (a day that she would refer to
like this: "if I ever went to live in Oceana you would still live your
life one way or another", and I would try to promise her that I would not
miss her too much after she was gone). But when I began to be more ill she
wouldn't push me away, no longer having the courage to refuse me, nor to
refuse herself the sweetness of her outpourings, and all the while kissing
me she would say: "no, there never was a mother and son so much in
complete agreement about everything". She never would have joked about
Madame Van Blarenberghe if she could have suspected the tragedy of her
existence (because the son already had intermittent periods of madness,
even then. But we knew absolutely nothing about it). As for M. Van
Blarenberghe, the father, Mama had a very high regard for him and he was
always charming to us when we were taking trips which my health made
complicated for me and so sad for Mama. I remember the Calvary of our trip
to Venice (your painted Venice, my dear Daniel), and at every station
where Mama wanted me to be able to lay down my cross, to have an empty
carriage, to take my anti-asthmatic fumigations, she would show them a
long letter that M. Van Blarenberghe had sent us (he was chairman of the
Board of Directors at the Est I believe) and which the Italian station
masters scoffed at. Sometimes in dreams I see again, without any of the
assuagement that, in my waking state, prudent and tender understanding
brings to dreadful memories, Mama's sadness during those trips. And when
upon waking I suddenly remember that she is no longer here, that she is no
longer suffering, it is with a feeling of calmness, of peacefulness, of
benediction. M. Van Blarenberghe was a little too reactionary for Mama who
had the largest and most tender heart that I could ever imagine. He was to
some extent one of those people about whom she would say: "he doesn't like
anything that can drive down interest rates and railway shares". But since
the death of my grandfather, through a kind of fetishism she had adopted,
transformed into occult objects, into tokens of commemoration and
ceremony, those things which while he was still alive she found a little
exaggerated in him; but my grandfather, good, sensitive, like her, who I
saw spend weeks without sleep because he had seen a man striking a child
in the street, and who even when he was ill and practically an invalid,
made his cab stop two streets away from his house so as not to risk
embarrassing the concierge at the sight of a luxury that he could not
afford for himself, my grandfather believed that the goodness in people
could only be procured under a regime that was (relatively speaking)
authoritarian and moreover anticlerical (even more relatively;
Louis-Philippe sent his sons to grammar school). My grandfather, my dear
Daniel, went to every performance of La Belle Hélène. "It was
the greatest event in his life, even more than our wedding", my
grandmother used to say. Moreover memories of the opera, just as much as
the operetta by my grandfather were my perpetual terror, because they
composed for him an allegorical language that was, alas, less difficult to
penetrate than he supposed, which he made use of to tell us things about
people, in their presence, that they were not supposed to understand.
Suppose for example that someone who we had spoken to him about was an
Israelite, despite the appearances of a changed name, no sooner had the
newcomer entered than, be it his face, be it an ill-considered reply from
the stranger to an insidious question, my grandfather was left in no doubt
and he would begin to violently hum: "Israel break your chains, oh people
rise up, gratify your hatred, the Lord is in me" (Samson et Dalila)
or "God of our fathers descend unto us, hide our mysteries from the eyes
of the wicked" (La Juive) or many others, "Death to the Infamous"
etc. A particular razor was always hailed in a cavatina from Le
Barbier. Fortunately the end of this page obliges me to bring to a
close these reminiscences which, alas, hold no charm and virtually no
meaning other than for me. There is no longer a single person, not even me
since I can no longer get up, who goes to visit, along the rue du Repos,
the little Jewish cemetery where my grandfather, following a ritual that
he had never understood, went every year to place a pebble on his parents'
tomb.
Marcel Proust."
Quatre Evangiles, by Emile Zola
Sent to Céline Cottin, [October 1911]:
"In memory of an unbeliever."
Les Oeuvres libres (Jalousie) 1921
To Odilon Albaret:
"To Odilon Albaret, his old friend of almost twenty years (a friendship that by its long standing does not make me feel any younger, but which has renewed it for him. But now that he has strength, health and youth may he not abuse them. May he maintain his reserves of strength. He is his own master, so that he sleeps more, at his own hours. He is at full liberty to do so since his own works are free works too). Affectionately, Marcel Proust."
To Sydney Schiff:
"Dear friend, here is the piece in Les Oeuvres libres, so full of errors that I hardly dare send it to you but be that as it may, next to your wonderful letters the moving force of which with their delectable sweetness they must be the writings that will last, even in the simplest things. Madame Schiff and yourself have a zest that impregnates everything and makes them delightful. Coming from you any banality seems to me to be impossible. Please place my respects at the feet of Madame Schiff and trust that I love you both infinitely. Marcel Proust"
To unknown recipient:
"With the author's compliments. Marcel Proust."
Dedications on unidentified books
To Madame de Chevigné:
"[...] You are, but you are not, ... but all the same you are Madame de Guermantes [...]"
To Charles Vicomte d'Alton:
[Dedication separated from unknown book]
"To Monsieur Vicomte d'Alton.
Dear Sir and friend, to whom a dying man cannot write but tells you at
least that he has not forgotten you, your wife or your delightful
daughters.
Respectfully yours,
Marcel Proust."
To Madame S. Charrot:
[Dedication separated from unknown book]
To Madame S. Charrot. As a token of respectful affection. Marcel Proust."
To Henri Massis:
[Dedication separated from unknown book]
"To Monsieur Henri Massis. As a token of profound affection. Marcel Proust."
To Arthur Toupine:
[Dedication separated from unknown book]
"To Monsieur Arthur Toupine. As a token of high literary esteem. Marcel Proust."
To unknown recipient:
"[...] In the interval [between my childhood and today] there has been a whole life of pleasure and suffering, and I no longer know if I can hold the pen that I took up too late. [...]"
Created 15.11.22
Updated 11.07.23