(Manuscript) – Alexandre DUMAS, Jr. The Road to Thebes. (Play...
(Manuscript) – Alexandre DUMAS, Jr. The Road to Thebes. (Play in 4 acts). [1894].
36 ff., 38 ff., 25 ff., 27 ff. folio, written on both sides of the page.
Copy made by Henriette Dumas.
The last, unfinished play by Dumas, Jr., who never wrote the fifth act.
On the road to Thebes, Oedipus encountered the Sphinx. Dr. Didier, a married man and father, encounters a mysterious and unsettling beauty toward the end of his life. Didier, a distinguished physician, is another Dumas—married to a woman he no longer loved and passionately in love with Henriette for the past eight years. Nadine Dumas died on April 2, 1895, and less than three months later, Dumas married Henriette… As for Didier, he had given up on marrying Miliane, whom he found too young to be bound to his old age.
When a journalist, Philippe Gilles, asked him, “Will we see *La Route de Thèbes*?”, Dumas Fils replied: “Do you really think so? To risk a tour at my age, when I have nothing left to lose. No! I’d be better off leaving *La Route de Thèbes* in my drawers. I do believe it’s one of my best plays; I also believe I’ll never stage it.” (*Le Figaro*, November 28, 1895).
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(Manuscript) – Alexandre DUMAS, Jr. The Road to Thebes. (Play in 4 acts). [1894].
36 ff., 38 ff., 25 ff., 27 ff. folio, written on both sides of the page.
Copy made by Henriette Dumas.
The last, unfinished play by Dumas, Jr., who never wrote the fifth act.
On the road to Thebes, Oedipus encountered the Sphinx. Dr. Didier, a married man and father, encounters a mysterious and unsettling beauty toward the end of his life. Didier, a distinguished physician, is another Dumas—married to a woman he no longer loved and passionately in love with Henriette for the past eight years. Nadine Dumas died on April 2, 1895, and less than three months later, Dumas married Henriette… As for Didier, he had given up on marrying Miliane, whom he found too young to be bound to his old age.
When a journalist, Philippe Gilles, asked him, “Will we see *La Route de Thèbes*?”, Dumas Fils replied: “Do you really think so? To risk a tour at my age, when I have nothing left to lose. No! I’d be better off leaving *La Route de Thèbes* in my drawers. I do believe it’s one of my best plays; I also believe I’ll never stage it.” (*Le Figaro*, November 28, 1895).
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
