Beauvoir’s 1930s story collection remained unpublished until 1979

Evidence

In the 1930s Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre were both working on their fi rst literary works. Beauvoir was craft ing a collection of short stories based on her adolescence and career as a budding lycée teacher in the provinces; Sartre, who was teaching in a lycée in Le Havre, was working on La Nausée and the short story collection entitled Le Mur. Sartre’s novel was published by Gallimard in April 1938 and Le Mur in February 1939. Beauvoir was not so lucky; her collection was rejected by Gallimard and then by Grasset. It was not published until 1979 as Quand prime le spirituel; however, the Folio paperback edition modifi ed it to Anne, ou quand prime le spirituel in order to “highlight the importance of the main character,” that is, to stress the central role this character played in Simone de Beauvoir’s youth. Th ere is no doubt that the death of Anne (whose story is based on that of Elisabeth Lacoin, called Zaza in Beauvoir’s memoirs) was a decisive moment in Beauvoir’s life, but this new title does shift the focus away from the collection as a comprehensive overview of “the lives of young French Catholic women aft er WWI” to that of its main victim, Anne/ Zaza. It is unfortunate that Beauvoir’s collection remained unknown for such a long time because it bears striking similarities to Sartre’s literary productions of the time and could have had an equally important impact. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 546

Categorization

• XREF: The publication-history detail directly bears on the authorship/influence debate this reader is tracking — whether Sartre’s published works shaped Beauvoir or vice versa, given hers sat unpublished until decades later. — connects to: Beauvoir’s early novel Anne lay unpublished from 1937 until 1979 — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 52