Les Loups
One of 110 copies on vélin pur fil (no. 71).
Presentation copy inscribed by Mazeline to Léon Daudet: “À Monsieur Léon Daudet, le courage littéraire et civique, le courage même, avec mes sentiments profonds d'admiration, Guy Mazeline.”
A naturalist saga tracing the rise and fall of an industrial dynasty in Le Havre, Les Loups won the prize by six votes to three over Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Voyage au bout de la nuit. Céline had the support of three influential jurors — Léon Daudet, Lucien Descaves and Jean Ajalbert — but failed to overturn a jury still wary of his violent and innovative style.
This copy is of particular interest: it is inscribed to Léon Daudet, a member of the Académie Goncourt, a feared critic and a major figure of literary life. Daudet had in fact been one of Céline’s supporters against Mazeline in this historic vote. Mazeline’s emphatic tribute, praising his “literary and civic courage,” thus reads as a gesture of esteem and influence, addressed to a hoped-for but disappointed supporter.
From the “Prix Goncourt” library of Gérard Pouguet, with bookplate.