L’Etranger
Albert Camus
Paris, 1942
 
An iconic work of philosophy and literature.
 
First edition, first printing. Original publisher’s wrappers. In April 1942, 4400 copies were produced with varied imprints - 400 service de presse, 500 with no mention of edition, and 3500 with false mentions of editions from second through eighth. This copy bears the false fifth edition imprint.
 
Spine toned and chipped with some spotting, cover edges moderately worn, tiny chip at upper corner of rear cover, pages browned per usual, overall a Very Good copy. Rare in wrappers.
 
‘The Stranger was completed as Camus worked during the day in a dingy hotel room in Paris, while in the evenings, he worked for a newspaper. It was a time of loneliness and tumult. As the war raged on, Camus moved from Paris to Oran in Algeria…With the Nazis’ growing stranglehold over all French institutions, paper production was strictly regulated and censorship was in place. That Camus’s book was published appears nothing short of miraculous…In the end, the Nazi head of propaganda in France, who had the final say in all publication matters, assented to The Stranger, as it was “asocial and apolitical.”’(Kumar)
 
"With the publication of The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus in the same year, Camus became a public figure and an existential legend."(Haven)