Proust and Rivière worked together – author and publisher – on Proust’s move from @editionsgrasset to…

Proust and Rivière worked together – author and publisher – to move Proust from @editionsgrasset to @la_nrf, and then to vigorously promote “The Search” in the aftermath of the war. 💥

Born on 15 July 1886, Jacques Rivière was 15 years younger than Marcel Proust. A literary figure from his teenage years, he founded his first magazine, entitled “L’Avenir”, at the age of 14. 🗞️ Proust had founded “Le Banquet” with his classmates at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris at the very time his future publisher was born in Bordeaux.

Rivière and Proust both experienced the grief of losing their mothers at a young age 💔, but Rivière lost hers at the age of 9, whilst Proust lost his at 34. Their fathers were doctors, and they were brought up as Catholics 💒, but Proust was also of Jewish descent on his mother’s side, through his mother, Jeanne Weil.

When Rivière lost his mother, Proust had just self-published “Pleasures and Days” with @calmann.levy. When he failed the agrégation in philosophy in 1909 and joined @la_nrf, Proust was working on his great novel 🖋️📚. Rivière read “Swann's Way” in early 1914: Proust had published it with @editionsgrasset, at his own expense, on 14 November 1913. 📗

7 Feb 1914: Proust’s first reply to his future publisher: 🖋️ “Sir, at last I have found a reader who realises that my book is a dogmatic work and a construction!” 🥰

@nrf.larevue resumed publication on 1 June 1919, with Rivière taking over as editor. Proust won the @academiegoncourt prize 🌟, published by @editions_gallimard, on 10 December 1919. Immediately attacked in the press, he was valiantly defended by Rivière, who published the famous article “Marcel Proust and the Classical Tradition”. 💪🏻

Proust died on 18 November 1922 🪦. Rivière and Robert Proust were working on publishing the final part of the Search. But Rivière died on 14 February 1925 🪦 – 100 years ago – of typhoid fever, and Jean Paulhan succeeded him at @la_nrf. 🕰️

#JacquesRivière #Abrège #MarcelProust #proustagram #NRF #Gallimard #1919 #PrixGoncourt #RTP #Proust