The Outsider [Stranger]

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1946. First English language edition. Near Fine/Near Fine. First UK edition, preceding the first American edition. A lovely, Near Fine copy of the book in like dust jacket. Book with a bit of foxing, mostly to the closed text block and the spine cloth a trifle faded. Dust jacket with slight wear at the crown and a very small chip at the base of the spine. Spine a bit toned and a few spots of foxing to the rear panel, but generally a fresh, bright copy.

Camus' groundbreaking debut, first published in France in 1942, positioned him as one of Europe's most influential existentialist thinkers (though Camus himself would resist that label). Written in the lead up to the Nazi invasion, The Outsider follows the protagonist Meursault, a French Algerian, as he learns of his mother's death, commits a murder the same day, and is ultimately sentenced to death. Throughout the experience, Meursault eschews all of the expected human emotions; he is detached from bourgeois feelings, focusing instead on the absolute absurdity of life. Before Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, becoming the first African-born laureate, he explained that the novel was inspired by "a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: 'In our society, a man who does not weep at his funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.'...the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game" (Carroll). A foundational and brilliant part of the modern literary-philosophical canon. Near Fine in Near Fine dust jacket.