About this Exhibition

Private Proust: Letters and Drawings to Reynaldo Hahn was produced by François Proulx, Lecturer on Comparative Literature at Harvard University and guest curator at Houghton Library. This online exhibition was originally a component of the Proust and the Arts web site, which served as a resource both for students enrolled in "French 165: Marcel Proust" and for guests and attendees of the interdisciplinary conference held at Harvard University April 19-20, 2013.

1. Pleasures and Days (1894-1896)

Here Proust urges Hahn to read his new story “Dinner in Town,” which was eventually included in Pleasures and Days. He wants Hahn to casually mention it in a letter to Madeleine Lemaire, without being “too obvious.” Proust believed Lemaire’s delay in finishing her drawings was setting back publication of the book. He signs, “Your little Marcel.”
Marcel Proust, Letter to Reynaldo Hahn, [May? 1895]. b 94M-48 (85), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Gift, Mrs. Bradley Martin, 1994.