Eugène SUE

Autograph manuscript signed, located and dated Savoie-Annecy-le-Vieux, 10 June 1854. Ten in-4 pages, two of which are half pages, on ruled paper, handwritten on double column, very well worked, erasures and additions. Complete manuscript of the dedication and the important introduction of the cyclical novel "THE DEVIL MEDICINE". "Dedication, crossed out word, to Monsieur Edgar Quinet. My friend, one of your last books had these words as its epigraph: Exuli (bus, striped)...Exul. I have been and all those to whom you addressed this touching dedication deeply sensitive to your fraternal remembrance. Allow me to dedicate this book to you, in turn, as a small tribute to my admiration for the work you have just published in the Revue des Deux Mondes: Your History of the Foundation of the Republic of the United Provinces (underlined twice). To you from the heart". "Le Diable Médecin - Première Série - La femme séparée de corps et de biens - La grande Dame - La Lorette - La Femme de lettres (without the beautiful girl, which appears in the original 1862 edition) - Introduction". Thus begins the introduction of nine pages of figures: "A rare genius has evoked the GABLED DEVIL; we cannot have the unseemly pretension of following, even from very far away, the inimitable Lesage in the way of the (fantastic, word crossed out) marvellous; (however, crossed out) nevertheless we also evoke the devil (underlined twice). Our devil however nothing fantastic. We knew him, we loved him, we honored him, because despite his quirks, he was a great man of goodness and a man of heart (and man of heart is not mentioned in the edition). A reality, modified according to the requirements of our fable and appropriate to the needs of our narrative, has always been the germ of our works" . (Without the literary word that appears in the edition). This important novel of manners puts forward a type of woman, it appeared partly in serial form in the Press between 1854 and 185