From the notes of Dr. Catherine Perry: This letter from Jean Cocteau (1889-1963, a French writer, designer, playwright, artist, and filmmaker) to Emmanuel Berl (1892-1976, a French journalist, historian and essayist) is dated 2 November 1962, less than a year before Cocteau's death. He is planning his book on Noailles, which was published posthumously as Anna de Noailles oui et non (Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin, 1963). This was Cocteau's last book. In the letter, Cocteau details the plan of his chapters, saying "it is impossible for him not to associate [Berl] to this project." He wants Berl to write "a biography that is not one," because Berl alone can show Noailles "caught between her sick room and the outside tumult." He gives other details, then says: "I need your voice recounting her intimate friends and her family." Then: "I ask you to dip this dry cookie into Marcel's cup" [Marcel from Proust]. And: "Without these lines (or this line) I will not be able to extract Anna from the swamp of cold shadows where the encyclopedists and the N.R.F. [Nouvelle Revue Française] have plunged her alive." Also included in the folder is the bookseller's description of the item, which contains a partial transcription of the letter (in French).