Mort à crédit - The manuscript found, Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Fac-simile and Transcription

• Hot-stamped box
• A complete facsimile of the writer's autograph manuscript and a volume for the transcription established, annotated and presented by Pascal Fouché
  
• Limited edition of 999 numbered copies

23.2 x 28.6 cm

1712 pages

Made to order. Please allow 3 to 5 business days for preparation before availability or shipment.

Among the manuscripts of Louis-Ferdinand Céline revealed in July 2021 were 1633 autograph pages of Death on Credit , unknown to this day. An invaluable discovery for literary history, as the writer's second novel, published in 1936 by Denoël, is distinguished by the considerable work on writing undertaken in it; it undoubtedly constitutes a turning point in the author's work as well as in the evolution of contemporary literature.

An exceptional account of the creation of a literary masterpiece. Following the critical success of Journey to the End of the Night , Céline began writing his second novel, to which he devoted himself from 1933 to 1936. A colossal project, initially conceived as a triptych, and from which would result Death on Credit , a story of Ferdinand's childhood and formative years. The rediscovered manuscript, reproduced and transcribed here in its entirety, reveals its extraordinary stylistic ambition and unveils the creative demands of its author.

Born in 1894 in Courbevoie, near Paris, Louis-Ferdinand Céline (pseudonym of L.-F. Destouches) prepared for his baccalaureate on his own while working. Enlisting in 1912, he was seriously wounded in November 1914. Disabled by 75% and discharged from service, he became a sales agent and went to Cameroon (1916), then to London (1917). After the victory, he studied medicine, then carried out missions in Africa and the United States for the League of Nations. Upon returning to France, he practiced medicine in the Paris suburbs and published his first book, Journey to the End of the Night, in 1932, followed by Death on the Installment Plan in 1936. From 1944 to 1951, Céline lived in exile in Germany and Denmark. Returning to France, he settled in Meudon where he continued his work (From One Castle to Another, North, Rigodon) and continued to primarily care for the poor. He died in 1961.