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Andre Gide was one of the leading French novelists and men of letters in the first half of the twentieth Century. This is the 1951 First Edition of Albert J. Guerard's book on Andre Gide, titled, appropriately enough, "Andre Gide". Here is an excerpt form the 1951 dust-jacket write-up, which explains the author's intent: "Andre Gide was one of the makers of the modern mind. He wanted to be and was a 'demoralizer': he led a whole generation to question its heritage, its preconceptions, its self-delusions, its most cherished institutions. His subtle, disturbing thought is part of our heritage today, for there is hardly a one of our 'new' questions and solutions but must take account of his. Mr. Guerard's penetrating critique of Gide's personality and writings is not only an objective and revealing study of a great man, it holds up a mirror in which we of the twentieth century may look at our darkest doubts and our most difficult honesties. ******************************************** "The book is not a systematic 'life and works'. Mr. Guerard chooses rather to surround Gide's elusive figure in a series of interlocking circles of creative criticism, and in this way to allow the man and the writer to reveal themselves. From chapters on Gide's career, novels, inner conflicts, and influence, emerges Gide the individualist, who was repeatedly tempted by political, moral, and religious commitment, but who resisted commitment: Gide the inward man suffering from guilt, but who at times actively cultivated anxiety and the dissolution of personality; Gide the novelist, who combated his creative impulses. ****************************************** "Supplying a lack in the books on Gide, Mr. Guerard devotes extended discussions to 'Le Voyage d'Urien', and 'L'Immoraliste' the one until now almost entirely overlooked, the other much read but almost as often misread. From another angle, Mr. Guerard emphasizes Gide's importance as a psychological novelist of the first rank, who explored and exposed the conflict between the conscious life and the preconscious or unconscious, and who analyzed or dramatized more fully than almost any other creative writer various impulses to self-destruction. ************************************** "Andre Gide read and commented in detail on the preliminary version of this book, and on a draft of the final chapter. Two highly interesting letters from him to the author are included in an appendix, and in the Preface the author vividly describes two visits to Gide, one in 1945, and the other in December 1950." **************************************** TITLE : Andre Gide / AUTHOR : Albert J. Guerard / IMPRINT : Harvard University Press / PLACE : Cambridge, Massachusetts / DATE : 1951 / EDITION : First Edition / STATUS : OP - Out of Print / EXTRAS : A review of two books about Andre Gide, published in the "Times Literary Supplement", September 14, 1956, was laid in between the rear end-papers. ("The Amazing Marriage"). It is a rather fascinating article. **************************************** CHAPTERS: - The Crisis of Individualism / The Spiritual Autobiography / The Early Novels / The Later Novels / The Corruptor of Youth PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION : Trade book, in hardcover format. Contains a Preface, appendices, notes, a chronology, an index. [xxii] + 263 pages; approximately 5 1/2" x 8 1/4"; quarter-bound with beige cloth spine and black cloth-covered boards; title, etc. lettered in black on spine; photo-pictorial dust-jacket has a handsome photograph of Gide on the front panel and a photograph of the author on the rear panel. *************************************** CONDITION . - VERY GOOD - This is a previously owned book which remains clean and attractive, with the following particulars noted: EXTERIOR : Spine extremities are compressed, else all is clean and bright. Text-block edges are clean. / BINDING : Solid. the book has obviously been read and thus the text-block is not so tight as when issued. / INTERIOR : Ne. Seller Inventory # 14
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