La retraite de Monsieur Bougran

"Solicited in 1888 by George Moore, an intermediary responsible for supplying French writers to Harry Quitter, a lover of literature who had founded the English Universal Review, Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) sent a short story - La Retraite de Monsieur Bougran - which was refused by the English publisher on the grounds that it was too "short" and was of interest "only to those who are initiated into the bureaucratic life of Paris; it would have little meaning and attraction in England". He regretted that this text was not decadent enough, in the style of A Rebours. The magazine's Parisian correspondent, not responsible for the literary tastes of the owner of The Universal Review, and not wanting to deprive herself of an author like Huysmans who had published Là-Bas (1891) and En Route (1895), revived the latter by asking him for another text on Odilon Redon. Which doesn't add up. Mr. Buckram's Retreat was not offered anywhere else and remained in a drawer. Huysmans knew what he was talking about: he joined the Ministry of the Interior and Religious Affairs as a sixth-class employee in 1866. A model civil servant, he was a well-known writer, but he never allowed his literary activities to bite on his professional duties. But his job at the ministry was like a cocoon for him, and his office a second home. Retired to Ligugé, Huysmans once retired in 1898, agreed to receive a journalist from Gil Blas. In the November 21 issue of the same year, he declared that he wanted to withdraw from Parisian bonds: "You see, this time it's exile". A withdrawal which was not unfounded since he will still publish The Cathedral. 1898: retirement then! The little, forgotten short story, written nineteen years earlier, was almost destroyed when Huysmans, at the end of his life, asked a nurse to burn papers in front of him that he thought were useless. The nurse, holding the manuscript of La Retraite de Monsieur Bougran, tore it up, but slipped it surreptitiously under his chair to save it from being set on fire. At least that is what Lucien Descaves, executor of Huysmans' will, told in Le Journal of July 24, 1938. Mr Bougran's retirement was saved and only resurfaced in 1964 thanks to Jean-Jacques Pauvert who edited it".

ORIGINAL EDITION on publishing paper.