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L'Alphabet des Aveux / de Vilmorin, Louise., 1954

 Item
Identifier: CC-15938-16273

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Scope and Contents

Jean Hugo illustrated this book that was also published in 49 copies on velin paper. The book includes seven calligrams in a style reminiscent of Apollinaire's poems.Wikipedia: Marie Louise Leveque de Vilmorin (4 April 1902 -- 26 December 1969) was a French novelist, poet and journalist.Born in the family chateau at Verrieres-le-Buisson, Essonne, a suburb southwest of Paris, she was heir to a great French seed company fortune, that of Vilmorin. She was afflicted with a slight limp that became a personal trademark. Vilmorin was best known as a writer of delicate but mordant tales, often set in aristocratic or artistic milieu. Her most famous novel was Madame de..., published in 1951, which was adapted into the celebrated film The Earrings of Madame de... (1953), directed by Max Ophuls and starring Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux and Vittorio de Sica. Vilmorin's other works included Juliette, La lettre dans un taxi, Les belles amours, Saintes-Unefois, and Intimites. Her letters to Jean Cocteau were published after the death of both correspondents.As a young woman, in 1923, she had been engaged to novelist and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery; however, the engagement was called off, even though Saint-Exupery gave up flying for a while after her family protested such a risky occupation. Vilmorin's first husband was an American real-estate heir, Henry Leigh Hunt (1886--1972), only son of Leigh Smith John Hunt, a businessman who once owned much of Las Vegas, by his wife Jessie Noble. They married in 1925 (1924 according to other sources), moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where Hunt's family owned extensive properties, and divorced in the 1930s. They had three daughters: Jessie (b. 1928), Alexandra, and Helena.Her second husband was Count Paul Palffy ab Erdod (1890--1968), a much-married Austrian-born Hungarian playboy, who had been second husband to the Hungarian countess better known as Etti Plesch, owner of two Epsom Derby winners. Palffy married Louise as his fifth wife in 1938, but the couple soon divorced. Vilmorin was the mistress of another of Etti Plesch's husbands, Count [Maria Thomas] Paul Esterhazy de Galantha (1901--1964), who left his wife in 1942 for Vilmorin. They never married. For a number of years, she was the mistress of Duff Cooper, British ambassador to France. Louise spent the last years of her life as the companion of the French Cultural Affairs Minister and author Andre Malraux, calling herself "Marilyn Malraux".Francis Poulenc literally sang her praises, considering her an equal to Paul Eluard and Max Jacob, found in her writing "a sort of sensitive impertinence, libertinage, and an appetite which, carried on into song [is] what I tried to express in my extreme youth with Marie Laurencin in Les Biches." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates

  • Creation: 1954

Creator

Extent

0 See container summary (1 soft cover book (165 pages)) ; 20.6 x 14.4 x 1.2 cm

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Physical Location

shelf living ro

Custodial History

The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, on loan from Ruth and Marvin A. Sackner and the Sackner Family Partnership.

General

Published: Paris, France : Librairie Gallimard. Nationality of creator: French. General: Added by: CONV; updated by: MARVIN.

Repository Details

Part of the The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry Repository

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