Sotheby’s, which sold the 297 letters, says they reveal ‘a complex and ambiguous relationship where unrequited passion and mistrust mingle’
Almost 300 letters, mostly unpublished, from the influential feminist thinker Simone de Beauvoir to the French novelist Violette Leduc, including The Second Sex author’s rejection of her friend’s romantic advances, have sold for €56,700 (£51,500).
Sent between 1945 to a month before Leduc’s death in 1972, the 297 letters reveal the intense friendship between the two women, with Beauvoir serving as an editor and source of unwavering support for Leduc, who she once called “the most interesting woman I know” and drew on her for her analysis of lesbianism in The Second Sex. Despite counting Jean Genet and Albert Camus among her fans, Leduc did not gain fame until the final years of her life, with her frank depiction of lesbian sex regarded as unacceptable for much of her career.
