[GIACOMELLI, Hector]. DUMAS Fils, Alexandre (1824-1895). Very important correspondence of about 140 autograph letters and cards signed by Alexandre Dumas fils and his wife Henriette, addressed to the watercolourist and engraver Hector GIACOMELLI (1822-1904). Envelopes largely preserved. A long and beautiful unpublished conversation, lasting more than 13 years. The last letter was sent by Dumas ten days before his death. -121 autograph letters and cards signed by Alexandre Dumas Fils to Hector Giacomelli. 16 November 1882 - 13 November 1895 (postmarks). Approximately 350 pages in-8 or in-12 oblong. Important and very long friendly and professional correspondence, of which only a few extracts will be quoted. Dumas Fils talks about many of his contemporaries, writers, artists, events, etc.; his personal life, his works and in particular La Dame aux Camélias & Sarah Bernhardt, La Route de Thèbes, La Princesse de Bagdad, the death of Meissonnier, the exhibition in Chicago, etc. On Émile Zola's La Débâcle, just published "I'm reading La Débâcle. The beginning is hard. I'm already a hundred pages into a difficult digestion, but Les Débats said this morning that it's a masterpiece; let's get on with it. However, I have never seen a masterpiece begin with a hundred boring pages [...] It is on this book that I intend to base my efforts to get the author admitted to the Académie. [...] He owes the ten votes he got the other day to me. Now let's talk business. Here are the prices of our paintings. Rouges gorges 430 [...] Mallet 140. Greuze 365. 1215. I am not talking about the portrait of Made Vigée [...] hung as a counterpart to the portrait of ? by Chardin [...]". He gave prices, mentioned frames, a pastel by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, etc. (July 1892). The next letter (14 August 1892, 12 pp.) contains a lengthy critique of Zola and his style: "[...] you tell me about La Débâcle, the reading of which has left you with a nightmare in your soul. Why write books that give you nightmares? Why read them? I tried to read that one [...] this man [Zola] has certain lenses in his brain that make him see certain things in a certain colour and from a certain angle, always magnifying these things excessively, but there won't be a whole work left of him. L'Assommoir remained a curiosity, not a masterpiece. A curious thing. From the books of this author who describes so much useless filth, we will extract heaps of style [...]. I do not believe, however, that this book, in which there is less shite, junk and holy name of God than in the others, although 'dirty pigs' are still used too often, I believe that this book has put the author in a better position for some of my fellow members of the Académie [...]". "You brought me these superb watercolours. You are the kindest man in the world [...]. You will tell me, my lad, that you do these things with no trouble at all. I was at rehearsal and it was only when I got home [...] that I found the dead bird and the living bird. "When the weather is fine, come and meet the yellow dwarf by the sea. Yesterday I bought a signature by Molière. 2500 francs! [...] I thought of you during that orgy [...]". (20 ? 1884). Etc. Dense, to be studied. -33 letters and cards from Henriette Alexandre Dumas to Giacomelli. Approximately 118 pages in-8 or in-12 oblong. 1885 to 1900 and n.d. Mostly on mourning paper -2 L.A.S. and one C.V.A. from Colette Lippmann, daughter of Alexandre Dumas fils. MLL