Relative sells Proust photos, letters, manuscripts

More than 120 photographs, letters, drawings, manuscripts and other Marcel Proust memorabilia went on sale on Tuesday at Sotheby's Paris.

The items have been in the possession of the writer's great-grand-niece, Patricia Mante-Proust, 41, and have a cumulative estimated value of $578,000-$823,000, EFE news agency reported.

The collection includes an original signed edition of "Swann's Way," the first volume of Proust's 3,000-page masterpiece "Remembrance of Things Past." Sotheby's expects the tome to fetch as much as $33,000.

Also on auction is an extensively re-written manuscript of the second volume, "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower."

The correspondence to be auctioned includes one of the three known letters from Proust to his father, a prominent physician who didn't consider literature a dignified occupation for his son.

--IANS

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