In these notebooks dating from 1833 and 1834, the writer recounts his meeting and his passion with the actress. To be released September 29.
Unpublished pages addressed by Victor Hugo to his lover Juliette Drouet will be published in September, the publisher Gallimard announced on Thursday.
In Love diaries to Juliette Drouetto be released on September 29 in the Folio pocket collection, one of the four notebooks is “entirely unpublished” and will be “reproduced in full in facsimile”.
These notebooks date from 1833 and 1834, two years when the romantic playwright became famous with the play Hernaniand married to a childhood friend, Adèle Fouchet, meets the actress and lives a passion with her.
“Two Years of Exclusive Love”
With Juliette, it will be “two years of exclusive love, of which the writer testifies in notebooks that he leaves to his lover each evening, when he leaves her (…) We read there declarations of love and happiness fiery, but also poems that his lover inspires him”, explains the publisher in his presentation of the book.
“This unique edition is accompanied by poems inspired by Juliette and theater scenes written for her. We also give letters from Juliette Drouet written to Hugo during this period”, he adds.
Juliette Drouet for her part wrote some 22,000 letters to Hugo until his death in 1883, or one a day for 50 years.
“I will give myself entirely to you”
Researchers from the University of Rouen have been working since 2016 to transcribe them, and have put more than 14,000 online on a dedicated website.
“I will give myself entirely to you”, she said in the first, on February 17, 1833. She would remain in fact faithful to the great writer for half a century, while he multiplied his conquests.
Folio also reissues on September 22 a drama by Victor Hugo (1802-1885), Angelo, tyrant of Paduadating from 1835.