Three handwritten autographs, one of which is signed.
[1941-1946]
4 pages in 4to. 270x210mm. Handwriting in easy-to-read cursive, brown ink.
Two short texts, in three pages
On the first page, he presents his work as costume and set designer for Georges Feydeau's “La Main Passe”, performed at the Theater des Mathurins in February 1941. The first page is signed at the end.
On the other two pages he speaks of the actress Eileen Herlie who was to play The Two-Headed Eagle in London in 1948, and of the ballet The Young Man and Death: "Wanting great background music for The Young Man and Death and refusing the sacrilege of translating Bach into choreography, I had my artists rehearse on modern rhythms. It is on these rhythms whose music I have suppressed (and which the public must not know), that Bach's sublime music unfolds..."
The last autograph, which begins with "Mesdames Messieurs" contains a praise of Colette, a great friend of Cocteau. This is the first version of the speech when he became a member of the “Societe des Gens de Lettres, on the recommendation of Anatole France and Jules Lemaitre, expressly referred to as “ mes premiers parrains ” [my first godfathers].