Trois lettres de mon moulin
Signed presentation inscription: “à Maurice Genevoix, avec mon affection, Marcel Pagnol.”
In 1954, Marcel Pagnol made Les Lettres de mon moulin, a sketch film adapting Les Trois Messes basses, L’Élixir du révérend père Gaucher and Le Secret de maître Cornille, three of the stories from Alphonse Daudet’s masterwork, together with a “Prologue.” In 1967, he completed these adaptations with a television film based on Le Curé de Cucugnan.
These “new Lettres de mon moulin” are rarely counted among Pagnol’s masterpieces. This is a mistake: they form a splendid introduction to the work of both authors, and a fine lesson in literature through Pagnol’s tribute, in both substance and form, to one of his masters.
An interesting provenance, bringing together two writers united by their love of the land and of childhood.
Pagnol preceded his elder at the Académie française by a few months, having been elected at only forty-seven, on April 4, 1946. His induction, on March 27, 1947, by Jérôme Tharaud, was filmed, a first in the history of the Académie française. Genevoix was elected in October 1946, and inducted six months after Pagnol, on November 13, 1947.
Their almost simultaneous election to the Académie française highlights their status as respected literary figures and their influence on French culture, reinforcing the bond between the two authors and underscoring their importance in postwar literary life.
Some small tears and creases to the wrappers.