La Cérémonie des adieux
One of 42 deluxe copies on Hollande paper, this copy no. 4.
Beauvoir dedicated this book “to all those who loved Sartre, love him and will love him… His death separates us. My death will not reunite us. That is how it is; it is already a fine thing that our lives were able to be in harmony for so long.” In La Cérémonie des adieux, Simone de Beauvoir looks back on the last ten years of her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. The book is presented in two parts: a personal narrative covering the years 1970–1980, followed by Entretiens avec Jean-Paul Sartre (August–September 1974), in which the philosopher, by then greatly weakened, reflects on his intellectual and political career. Beauvoir adopts a tone that is both affectionate and rigorously documentary, describing without pathos his failing eyesight, exhaustion, hospitalizations and progressive loss of autonomy. The final pages are especially moving.
A fine copy.