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)

Against Lemaire’s motherly cautions, Proust and Hahn traveled along the Brittany coast by themselves in September 1895. The trip would inspire some of the descriptions of the seaside in the second and fourth volumes of In Search of Lost Time. In this letter, Hahn addresses Madeleine Lemaire as “mother,” and tells her that “Marcel,” her “other boy,” will write to her the next day.
Reynaldo Hahn, Letter to Madeleine Lemaire, [Sept 1895]. b MS Fr 219 (2), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Purchase, Amy Lowell Fund, 1963.