Le grand Meaulnes

A very surprising inscription to the editor-in-chief of L'Opinion who first offered to publish this novel in February 1913, through Henri Massis. The offer was ultimately redacted, after being rejected by the magazine's other editors. Thanks to his longtime friend Jacques Rivière, young Alain-Fournier managed to get a pre-first edition, serialized version of this novel published in the Revue de la Nrf. In the end, the small publishing house Emile-Paul agreed to issue the finished work in volume in September.
The immediate success of this masterpiece of 20th-century French literature must have somewhat ruffled the feathers of Jean de Pierrefeu, who wrote a bitter and ambivalent review: “I would have liked Alain Fournier to stop his story at the moment of his departure for Paris..., we would have been quite happy to accept that this slightly mad and fanciful tale should remain unexplained. ... but he wanted to weigh down his novel, which from then on turns out to be absurd, the characters become puppets... the dried-up skeleton of a love story to which one is not allowed to become seriously attached...”.
No doubt Pierrefeu wished to justify L'Opinion's failed offer of publication. Although in so doing, he was reflecting a general lack of understanding by literary critics - confused by the innovative double narrative structure of the novel.