Jean Potocki méritait mieux

Daniel Beauvois : Jean potocki deserved better. J. Potocki's famous novel, Le Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse, was written in French, its copies were 'lost' and its complete 66 chapters or 'days' were only known in an 1847 Polish translation, retranslated into several languages. Several incomplete copies were known to be scattered in Polish and European archives ; references are given in the 1972 Potocki Conference Acts (Cahiers de Varsovie, n° 3), in M. E. Zoltowska's thesis (Yale 1973), in Kukulski's Polish editions (1956, 1965) and their German translations (1981, 1984). M. E. Zoltowska has been preparing a complete edition for the last 15 years, thanks to new discoveries (17 mss), and had a contract with Gallimard for the 'Pléiade'. The publisher Corti has got in first by publishing in 1989 a so-called 'complete' version in which 14 chapters (about 100 p.) have been retranslated from the German — which is nowhere indicated. Thus the reader is deprived of the authentic version of the chapters that only M. E. Soltowska has found. [D. Beauvois's article is followed by Corti's reply.]