French letters: Fifty Shades of Grey publisher buys erotic correspondence

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/17/fifty-shades-of-grey-publisher-acquires-erotic-letters

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The publisher who signed up Fifty Shades of Grey has acquired a cache of erotic letters written almost a century ago in France by a woman to her married lover, detailing the increasing lengths she will go to, and the taboos she will break, to keep his interest.

Now snapped up by publishers around the world, the letters were discovered by the diplomat Jean-Yves Berthault in the cellar of a friend’s old apartment. They were exchanged between the well-to-do Mademoiselle Simone, and her married, younger lover Charles, in 1920s Paris, starting “with Simone’s own sexual awakening and becom[ing] increasingly erotic and explicit as their relationship develops, and Simone pushes the boundaries of what was acceptable in order to keep Charles satisfied,” said William Heinemann, which acquired the collection less than 48 hours after it was submitted.

The correspondents’ identity is unknown, and there is “no trace” of how the letters came to be there, said Heinemann, part of Penguin Random House, “though they appeared to be deliberately hidden under several crates of empty jars”.

“We have no way of knowing who Simone or Charles were, or what became of them, only that their affair ended in heartbreak,” said Selina Walker, who previously signed up EL James’ record-breaking erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey for Heinemann’s sister imprint Century two years ago.

“What we have left is Simone’s voice that echoes down the years, her letters, and her sexual relationship with the man she clearly loved,” said Walker. “This is a time capsule of a book, a truly extraordinary testament to a period of time and a relationship that was as physical as it was passionate. And the fact that it was such a deeply buried secret for all these years makes it particularly special.”

The book’s agent, Susanna Lea Associates , said that, in language “by turns elegant, moving, and crude”, the letters show “the life of a woman in the 1920s who, though bound by her class and gender, is able to transcend that confinement and embrace her true self”.

“Simone finds herself immersed in a world of physical pleasure hitherto unknown to her. Gradually, Simone loses touch with reality and becomes obsessed with Charles. Yet the more desperately she wants him, the less he returns her affection,” said the agent in its description of the collection. “As her hunger for Charles grows, Simone forces him beyond his sexual boundaries, ultimately reversing their roles. Simone wants Charles to taste unsuspecting pleasures and she turns him into her ‘mistress’. With each taboo they break, he gives himself further to her – until their last fateful sexual encounter.”

Heinemann will publish the collection, which will be edited by Berthault, as The Passion of Mademoiselle S next July.