(Paris) The manuscript of the play Germinal by Emile Zola, a largely unpublished adaptation of the famous novel and the writer’s “last great manuscript” in private hands, was bought at auction on Wednesday by the National Library of France.
The BnF announced in a press release that it was the buyer of this unique piece, for 138,600 euros.
“The BnF bought, at my request, the manuscript of the adaptation into a play of the novel #Germinal by Emile Zola. This manuscript completes the exceptional collection of the National Library of France devoted to the author and thus enters the national collections ”, specified on Twitter the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot.
The highest bid, for this lot estimated between 100,000 and 150,000 euros by the Sotheby’s house, was carried by the agglomeration community of Porte du Hainaut, in the North, said this intermunicipal authority.
This was without counting on the right of pre-emption, which gives priority to the State, for the same amount.
” From now on, Germinal belongs to all ”, underlined the president of the agglomeration community Aymeric Robin.
The manuscript consists of 454 pages written between 1885 and 1888 by the hand of the famous naturalist novelist, to adapt his novel published in 1885.
“It joins the manuscript of the novel and more broadly all of the writer’s manuscripts, kept at the BnF, in order to shed new light on one of the most emblematic works of French literature,” said congratulated the president of the BnF, Laurence Engel, quoted in the press release.
Huge success in volume, this account of a coal miners’ revolt in northern France in the 1860s had, according to Zola, the potential for a theatrical adaptation that would reach an even wider audience.
But the writer had the bad surprise to see the censors refuse the first version of his play, considered too subversive. He had to write a second, watered down, which failed.
According to Sotheby’s, the seller was a “European” collector who “wishes to remain anonymous” and says “no more about the itinerary” of the “last great manuscript of Emile Zola still in private hands”.
Communist elected officials from the North, MP Fabien Roussel and Mr. Robin, had called on the State to become a buyer so that the manuscript integrates public collections, in the same way as most of those of the author of the saga of Rougon-Macquart.
Mme Engel hinted that she would take the initiative to show this manuscript. “I hope that the BnF will soon be able to present this work with strong symbolic significance in the regions”, she said.