Les Possédés

12mo of 298 pp., publisher’s wrappers.

186 x 118 mm.

Camus, Albert. Les Possédés, pièce en trois parties adaptée du roman de Dostoïevski par Albert Camus.

Paris, Gallimard, 1959.

First edition.

One of the 21 first copies printed on Dutch paper (#15).

This play adapted from Dostoyevsky’s Possessed was created and directed by the author on January 30, 1959 at the Théâtre Antoine.

A small provincial town is faced with the return of Nicolas Stavroguine, a fascinating man with icy beauty, an empty, aimless figure, who rejected God in favour of freedom and the inevitable chaos that accompanies him; chaos fanned by Piotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky who wishes to develop revolutionary action... But this struggle between good and evil is replaced by the tragedy of the abandoned man of God, infinite freedom engendering an infinite despotism.

In 1955, in an interview, Camus stated that he had discovered Dostoyevsky’s novel at the age of twenty and added: «The shock I received from it still lasts, after twenty more years».

This play is a critique of all ideologies, from moderate or ultra conservatism to socialism and nihilism, all visions of the world leading to “demons” who seize the hearts and souls of the "possessed" and cause them to sink into horror or incoherence.

The Possessed are one of the four or five works I put on top of all others. In more ways than one, I can say that I have fed on it and that I have trained there. It’s been almost twenty years since I’ve seen his characters on the stage. They not only have the stature of dramatic characters, they have the conduct, the explosions, the fast and disconcerting pace… I simply tried to follow the profound movement of the book and to go like it from satirical comedy to drama, then tragedy” (Camus, Prayer to Insert, April 1959).

One of the 21 first copies printed on Dutch paper preserved in publisher’s wrappers.