Pierre LOTI (1850-1923) 19 L.A.S. "Julien Viaud", 1885-1909, to Edward Lee Childe; 55 pages in-8. Moving correspondence to the husband of her great friend. [Blanche Lee Childe maintained an ongoing correspondence with Loti, initially under the mask of "Oirda", which bears witness to a strong friendship between the two. It was she who forced the publication of Pêcheur d'Islande at the Revue des deux mondes. See Blanche Lee Childe, Pierre Loti, Ah! cher Loti, croyez-moi, le Masque avait du bon. Correspondence (Le Passeur, 2022)]. Yokohama November 17 [1885], Loti worries about Blanche's health: "I am deeply attached to her. I write to her very often; my letters are a sort of little visits I make to her to distract her a little during her long hours of suffering"... - Toulon Saturday evening [February 27, 1886], on receiving an alarming dispatch: "my thoughts are always with you, and with Madame Childe for whom I have admiration and an almost fraternal affection".... - Sunday evening [February 28]. On receiving the dispatch (announcing Blanche's death), "I shut myself up at home to weep. And this morning I had a crêpe knot put on my uniform cap. Please allow me to wear this mourning, for it seems to me that I have lost a sister, an exquisite one, whom I have always known and loved"... - Rochefort March 19. His trip to Paris is delayed. He asks for a portrait of Blanche. "Then I would like permission to dedicate to Madame Lee Childe's memory something about the Far East that she had read and found pretty"... - [April]. He is very busy with the command and outfitting of the Magician. "Besides, I haven't finished my novel Pêcheur d'Islande, which the magazine has begun to publish, and I have to spend my evenings and even my nights on it".... - On the subject of the wallet containing his letters to Blanche, which his niece Ninette will bring to him: "it will be kept religiously"... He would like to have an embroidery made by Blanche's hands, which he would place "like a relic somewhere in my Turkish salon where profane people are not admitted".... [January 1887]. He concludes his Propos d'Exil, which he would like to "dedicate to the memory of Madame Lee Childe. The dedication [...] will be to the noble and exquisite friend who is always present to me. I shall try to fix her features a little, to recount her last admirable moments"... - He works on the text of the dedication, "a few pages so difficult to write"... - He submits the text of the dedication. - On the corrections and deletions to be made to his text. - He expresses his sympathy... He spends a week with the Queen of Romania.... [1896]. He has not forgotten "the melancholy anniversary. These ten years have passed frighteningly quickly and the memory of her who left us is still for me as new; I still miss her noble heart and clear intelligence in life"... Etc. Attached is a small L.A.S., [10.XII.1913], to Marie Lee Childe (Edward's second wife). Provenance: Château du Perthuis. Note: Blanche's family and friends were related to Valentine de Laborde, and she was close to the literary circles around Mérimée in the second half of the 19th century. She herself published several texts, notably in the Revue des Deux Mondes, including Impressions de Voyage, 1882, Le général Robert E. Lee (1873) and Un Hiver au Caire, Journal de voyage en Egypte, 1883, published by Calmann Lévy. It was her novelistic correspondence with Pierre Loti that made her a part of literary history. Edited by Hervé Duchêne in 2022 (Blanche Lee Childe, Pierre Loti, Ah! cher Loti, croyez-moi, le Masque avait du bon. Correspondance (Le Passeur)), this epistolary exchange between a mysterious oriental masked stranger ("Oirda, la Rose") and a young sailor-writer leads to a frank friendship. Blanche even provided the proofreading for Mon frère Yves and, after her tragic death, was the subject of a tribute to the memory of Madame Lee Childe as an introduction to Propos d'exil in 1887 (lot 75).