Letter to the future Sonia Orwell from the love of her life, [1948] Maurice MERLEAU-PONTY Manuscripts

Autograph letter signed to "Chère Sonia" from "Maurice": 4pp. 8vo, Lyons, Dimanche [October 1948]. A little creased and marked; written on the printed letterhead of the Faculté des Lettres (Université de Lyon). Letter making detailed arrangements for his visit to England, not stinting on train times (Lyons-Dieppe-Newhaven-Victoria). Might he go to Cambridge? He and Suzon (his wife Suzanne) will be based at the new Maison Française in Oxford, c/o Henri Fluchère. His timetable is still unclear, but "J'espère bien te voir le plus possible". He writes playfully about the comparative attitudes to philosophers of French and English journalists. He has indeed read "Some Aspects of Existentialism" (by A. J. Ayer, printed in The Rationalist Handbook 1948), which, he thought, descended into polemic, and read and enjoyed Le Tombeau de Palinure (Michel Arnaud's 1947 translation of Cyril Connolly's The Unquiet Grave), discussing the latter in philosophical terms (Heidegger, Flaubert, Sartre . . .). Suzon is keen to go to the Gargoyle Club. Freddie Ayer can be "charmant et touchant", but "sa philosophie, me semble-t-il, est sadique-anale". Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), philosopher and phenomenologist, was, with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, a co-founder in October 1945 of the journal Les Temps Modernes, and thus an opposite number of Sonia Brownell, who was working with Cyril Connolly on Horizon. They met in Paris in 1947 with Peter Watson, Horizon's proprietor, and became lovers on Merleau-Ponty's visit to London over the New Year 1947-8. Their affair continued on and off for over a year, only coming to an end because of Merleau-Ponty's refusal to part from his wife. Brownell told de Beauvoir that he was the love of her life.