L’Exil et le Royaume

12mo of [188 x 120 mm] of 231 pp., (3) ll., (1) bl. l.

Publisher’s wrappers, uncut copy. Contemporary binding.

Camus, Albert. L’Exil et le royaume. Nouvelles. Paris, NRF Gallimard, 1957.

First edition.

One of the first 45 copies printed on Dutch Van Gelder wove paper and one of 5 copies not for sale marked A to E, this one being C.

In 1954, Camus starts writing the first two short stories of “Exil et le Royaume”, “La Femme adultère” and “Un esprit confus”. The date is important, the writer himself saying it was a “pivotal time in [his] work and [his] life”. His novel “La Peste”, published in 1947, was an immediate success ; then followed “L’Etat de siege” in 1948, “L’Homme révolté” in 1951 and “L’Eté” in 1954. Since the beginning of 1954, Camus wonders about his very recent dry spell in regards to his writing and feels momentarily incapable of undertaking the three great panels of his tryptic : theater, essay, novel.

The collection is made up of six stories : “La Femme adultère”, “Le Renégat”, “Les Muets”, “L’Hôte”, “Jonas” and “La Pierre qui pousse”.

For the writer, these stories are like “differentscales, leading up to a renewal of the form”.

Albert Camus is writing in a context of solitude and exile. He feels he is a prisoner of the mistaken idea that the critics and public have of him and it is very painful to endure.

Each of these short stories on solitude and solidarity is a testament to the suggestive force of symbolic realism.

Camus’ accompanying text is quite explicit : “Only one theme, exile, treated in six different ways, from the interior monologue to the realistic narrative. And as for the kingdom… it refers to a particular life, free and bare, that we have to find in order to finally be reborn. In a sense, exile shows us the way, provided that we manage to refuse both servitude and property.”

Preserved in publisher's wrappers.

Provenance : Library of Raoul Simonson (2013, II, n°443).