Proust‘s personal archives sell at auction for $1.3m

PARIS (AFP) - Intimate letters, personal photographs and rare manuscripts that once belonged to French writer Marcel Proust have sold at auction for 1.2 million euros ($1.3 million).

The sale at Sotheby‘s in Paris on Tuesday far exceeded expert estimates for the collection of 520,000 to 740,000 euros.

The trove of about 120 documents was sold by the writer’s 41-year-old great-grand-niece Patricia Mante-Proust and included a hand-corrected proof of one of Proust’s well-known works.

The collection also featured several photos of the author, famous for his seminal work “Remembrance of Things Past,” his family and close male friends Lucien Daudet and Reynaldo Hahn who were also his lovers.

While each item on the list went for more than estimated, it was a set of proofs of “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower,” the second part of “Remembrance,” that blew experts away.

The set, which includes crossed out passages and corrections from the author, was expected to fetch between 20,000 to 25,000 euros.

It finally sold for 111,000 euros, the most expensive sale on the list.

The book, which was supposed to be published in 1914, was delayed by the outbreak of World War I and left the author with time to make changes to the manuscript.

“The set of proofs represents the author’s writing in the midst of his creative flow, with all its successive edits,” Sotheby‘s said in a statement.

An original edition of “Swann’s Way,” the first volume of “Remembrance” and which was published in 1913, sold for 62,500 euros.