Best Selling Books by Albert Camus

A Nobel Prize-winning author delivers one of the most influential works of the twentieth century, showing a way out of despair and reaffirming the value of existence. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide—the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly presents a crucial exposition of existentialist thought.

With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger—Camus's masterpiece—gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. With an Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie; translated by Matthew Ward. Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. “The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward’s translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus’s stoical anti-hero and ­devious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity.” —from the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.

"Here now, for the first time in a complete English translation, we have Camus's three little volumes of essays, plus a selection of his critical comments on literature and his own place in it. As might be expected, the main interest of these writings is that they illuminate new facets of his usual subject matter."--The New York Times Book Review "A new single work for American readers that stands among the very finest."--The Nation

NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR • One of the most widely read novels of all time—from one of the best-known writers of all time—about a lawyer from Paris who brilliantly illuminates the human condition. Elegantly styled, Camus' profoundly disturbing novel of a Parisian lawyer's confessions is a searing study of modern amorality.

By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution that resonates as an ardent, eloquent, and supremely rational voice of conscience for our tumultuous times. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Promethean struggle against the conditions of his existence, as well as the popular uprisings against established orders throughout history. And yet, with an eye toward the French Revolution and its regicides and deicides, he shows how inevitably the course of revolution leads to tyranny. Translated from the French by Anthony Bower.

The first novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author lays the foundation for The Stranger, telling the story of an Algerian clerk who kills a man in cold blood. In A Happy Death, written when Albert Camus was in his early twenties and retrieved from his private papers following his death in 1960, revealed himself to an extent that he never would in his later fiction. For if A Happy Death is the study of a rule-bound being shattering the fetters of his existence, it is also a remarkably candid portrait of its author as a young man. As the novel follows the protagonist, Patrice Mersault, to his victim's house -- and then, fleeing, in a journey that takes him through stages of exile, hedonism, privation, and death -it gives us a glimpse into the imagination of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. For here is the young Camus himself, in love with the sea and sun, enraptured by women yet disdainful of romantic love, and already formulating the philosophy of action and moral responsibility that would make him central to the thought of our time. Translated from the French by Richard Howard

One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.

As a philosophy teacher, mentor, and friend, Jean Grenier (1898?1971) had an enormous influence on the young Albert Camus (1913?1960), who, in fact, acknowledged that Grenier?s Les Iles had touched the very core of his sensibility and provided him with both a ?terrain for reflection, and a format? that he would later use for his own essays. Their correspondence, beginning when the seventeen-year-old Camus was Grenier?s student at the Grand Lycäe of Algiers, documents the younger man?s struggle to become a writer and find his own voice, a period in which he turned frequently to his mentor for advice, comfort, and direction. The letters cover a period of almost thirty years, from 1932 to Camus?s untimely death in 1960. Because Camus destroyed the earlier correspondence he received, the first twenty-six letters in the volume are his only; the full begins in 1940. ø These enlightening letters offer invaluable glimpses into the development of Camus?s aesthetic ideas, literary production, and political stance. In contrast to the correspondence of Grenier, who throughout remains somewhat reticent about his life and doubtful about himself and his works, Camus?s letters are a window into his most profound thoughts and sensitivities, delving deeply into his psyche and, at times, revealing a side of the writer unfamiliar to us. Undoubtedly they allow us a better understanding of Albert Camus, the man and the artist.

“Its relevance lashes you across the face.” —Stephen Metcalf, The Los Angeles Times • “A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair.” —Roger Lowenstein, The Washington Post A haunting tale of human resilience and hope in the face of unrelieved horror, Albert Camus' iconic novel about an epidemic ravaging the people of a North African coastal town is a classic of twentieth-century literature. The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a timeless story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

From the Nobel Prize-winning author comes the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own, with the sights, sounds and textures of a childhood steeped in poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his mother. "A work of genius." —The New Yorker Published thirty-five years after its discovery amid the wreckage of the car accident that killed Camus, The First Man is the brilliant consummation of the life and work of one of the 20th century's greatest novelists. Translated from the French by David Hapgood. "The First Man is perhaps the most honest book Camus ever wrote, and the most sensual...Camus is...writing at the depth of his powers...It is "Fascinating...The First Man helps put all of Camus's work into a clearer perspective and brings into relief what separates him from the more militant literary personalities of his day...Camus's voice has never been more personal." —The New York Times Book Review

Set in North Africa, Paris, and Brazil, the six stories in this masterful collection reveal probing portraits of spiritual exile, and man’s perpetual search for an inner kingdom in which to be reborn. From a variety of masterfully rendered perspectives, these six stories depict people at painful odds with the world around them. A wife can only surrender to a desert night by betraying her husband. An artist struggles to honor his own aspirations as well as society's expectations of him. A missionary brutally converted to the worship of a tribal fetish is left with but an echo of his identity. They display Camus at the height of his powers. Now, on the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication, Carol Cosman’s new translation recovers a literary treasure for our time. Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.

The Nobel Prize winner's most influential and enduring personal writings, newly curated and introduced by acclaimed Camus scholar Alice Kaplan. Albert Camus (1913-1960) is unsurpassed among writers for a body of work that animates the wonder and absurdity of existence. Personal Writings brings together, for the first time, thematically-linked essays from across Camus's writing career that reflect the scope and depth of his interior life. Grappling with an indifferent mother and an impoverished childhood in Algeria, an ever-present sense of exile, and an ongoing search for equilibrium, Camus's personal essays shed new light on the emotional and experiential foundations of his philosophical thought and humanize his most celebrated works.

The Outsider or The Stranger (French: L'Etranger) is a novel by Albert Camus published in 1942. Its theme and outlook are often cited as exemplars of Camus's philosophy of the absurd and existentialism, though Camus personally rejected the latter label. The titular character is Meursault, an indifferent French Algerian ("a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an homme du midi yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture"), who, after attending his mother's funeral, apathetically kills an Arab man whom he recognises in French Algiers. The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder, respectively. In January 1955, Camus wrote: "I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: 'In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.' I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game."

Meursault leads an apparently unremarkable bachelor life in Algiers until he commits a random act of violence. His lack of emotion and failure to show remorse only serve to increase his guilt in the eyes of the law, and challenges the fundamental values of society - a set of rules so binding that any person breaking them is condemned as an outsider. For Meursault, this is an insult to his reason and a betrayal of his hopes; for Camus it encapsulates the absurdity of life. In The Outsider (1942), his classic existentialist novel, Camus explores the predicament of the individual who refuses to pretend and is prepared to face the indifference of the universe, courageously and alone.

Is it possible to die a happy death? This is the central question of Camus's astonishing early novel, published posthumously and greeted as a major literary event. It tells the story of a young Algerian, Mersault, who defies society's rules by committing a murder and escaping punishment, then experimenting with different ways of life and finally dying a happy man. In many ways A Happy Death is a fascinating first sketch for The Outsider, but it can also be seen as a candid self-portrait, drawing on Camus's memories of his youth, travels and early relationships. It is infused with lyrical descriptions of the sun-drenched Algiers of his childhood - the place where, eventually, Mersault is able to find peace and die 'without anger, without hatred, without regret'.

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • Twenty-three political essays that focus on the victims of history, from the fallen maquis of the French Resistance to the casualties of the Cold War. In the speech he gave upon accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, Albert Camus said that a writer "cannot serve today those who make history; he must serve those who are subject to it." Resistance, Rebellion and Death displays Camus' rigorous moral intelligence addressing issues that range from colonial warfare in Algeria to the social cancer of capital punishment. But this stirring book is above all a reflection on the problem of freedom, and, as such, belongs in the same tradition as the works that gave Camus his reputation as the conscience of our century: The Stranger, The Rebel, and The Myth of Sisyphus.

The summation of the existentialist philosophy threaded throughout all his writing, Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus is translated by Justin O'Brien with an introduction by James Wood in Penguin Classics. In this profound and moving philosophical statement, Camus poses the fundamental question: is life worth living? If human existence holds no significance, what can keep us from suicide? As Camus argues, if there is no God to give meaning to our lives, humans must take on that purpose themselves. This is our 'absurd' task, like Sisyphus forever rolling his rock up a hill, as the inevitability of death constantly overshadows us. Written during the bleakest days of the Second World War, The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe) argues for an acceptance of reality that encompasses revolt, passion and, above all, liberty. This volume contains several other essays, including lyrical evocations of the sunlit cities of Algiers and Oran, the settings of his great novels The Outsider and The Plague. Albert Camus (1913-60) is the author of a number of best-selling and highly influential works, all of which are published by Penguin. They include The Fall, The Outsider and The First Man. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, Camus is remembered as one of the few writers to have shaped the intellectual climate of post-war France, but beyond that, his fame has been international. If you enjoyed The Myth of Sisyphus, you might like Camus' The Outsider, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Camus could never cease to be one of the principal forces in our domain, nor to represent, in his own way, the history of France and of this century' Jean-Paul Sartre

The Nobel Prize winner's most influential and enduring political writings, newly curated and introduced by acclaimed Camus scholar Alice Kaplan. Albert Camus (1913-1960) is unsurpassed among writers for a body of work that animates the wonder and absurdity of existence. Committed Writings brings together, for the first time, thematically-linked essays from across Camus's writing career that reflect the scope of his political thought. This pivotal collection embodies Camus's radical and unwavering commitment to upholding human rights, resisting fascism, and creating art in the service of justice.

This final volume, recorded over the last nine years of his life, takes on the characteristics of a personal diary.--[book jacket].

Youthful writings of Albert Camus including essays, verse, parables, and fairy tales.

Endorsements: "The reissue of Camus' seminal essay, 'Neither Victims nor Executioners, ' could hardly be more timely. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the hideous march to oblivion goes on apace. America is ironically reversing the ethic proposed by Camus' title. American adventuring, playing the part of omnipotent executioner, is creating multitudes of victims. No search is undertaken for a 'third way.' Indeed, were the Camus thesis proposed, it would evoke only wide-eyed innocent arrogance. Kennedy and Klotz-Chamberlin have dedicated a lifetime to the 'third way' commended by Camus. Our gratitude to our mentors for a prescient, timely introduction." --Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ "Pacifists are not looking for a Utopian outlook nor unrealistic expectations. Many said, 'South Africa will not change.' But it did. Others looked at Northern Ireland and, it took years, but it also changed. The Soviet Union changed. The Middle East will change but not through violence or murder. We still think of ourselves within borders, protecting ourselves from others, Europe took its borders away and they are better. South, Central, and North America should take away their borders, as well as people in the Middle East. . . . We should build a culture of nonviolence through an understanding of human rights without regard to race, religion, and nationality." --Mubarak Awad, founder of Nonviolence International "If we spontaneously approve of nuclear terrorism, if we become apologists for the uninhibited use of naked power, we are thinking like Communists, we are behaving like Nazis, and we are well on the way to becoming either one or the other. In that event we had better face the fact that we are destroying our own Christian heritage." --Thomas Merton Author Biography: Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 - January 4, 1960) was a French author and philosopher and one of the principal luminaries (with Jean-Paul Sartre) of existentialism. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.

From one of the most brilliant and influential thinkers of the twentieth century and a Nobel Prize-winning author: two novels, six short stories, and a pair of essays in a single volume that deploy his lyric eloquence in defense against despair. In both his essays and his fiction, Albert Camus (1913—1960) provides an affirmation of the brave assertion of humanity in the face of a universe devoid of order or meaning. The Plague—written in 1947 and still profoundly relevant—is a riveting tale of horror, survival, and resilience in the face of a devastating epidemic. The Fall (1956), which takes the form of an astonishing confession by a French lawyer in a seedy Amsterdam bar, is a haunting parable of modern conscience in the face of evil. The six stories of Exile and the Kingdom (1957) represent Camus at the height of his narrative powers, masterfully depicting his characters—from a renegade missionary to an adulterous wife—at decisive moments of revelation. Set beside their fictional counterparts, Camus’s famous essays “The Myth of Sisyphus” and “Reflections on the Guillotine” are all the more powerful and philosophically daring, confirming his towering place in twentieth-century thought.

From 1943 to 1947, Albert Camus was editor-in-chief of the famous underground and post-Liberation French newspaper Combat. Among his journalist writings during this period were eloquent essays that grappled with questions of revolution, violence, freedom, justice, ethics, and the emerging social order. The 41 pieces collected here--most never before published in English--tell the story of a sensitive man's odyssey from "hell to reason" at a time of tremendous upheaval while also providing a missing link between Camus's pre-war and post-war works. Almost lyrical in their intensity of thought and language, these newspaper pieces show a Camus new to most American readers and are a unique testimony to an extraordinary period in history with parallels to current changes in Eastern Europe. At the time of Liberation in 1944, Camus called for a revolution in French society, including a violent purge of those who had sided with the Nazis. When this turned into a near civil war of personal vendettas and summary executions, he gradually became disillusioned with his hopes for a new society. His later pieces in Combat show him arriving at a more moderate theory of revolt later echoed in such books as The Plague and The Rebel: the individual mattered above all, human life was greater than social goals. "I have come to the conclusion", he wrote, "that men who want to change the world today must choose one of the following: the charnel house, the impossible dream of stopping history, or the acceptance of a relative Utopia that still leaves man the choice to act freely".

Camus's 1st vol. of Notebooks (1935-1942) ; translated from the French, and with a pref. and notes, by P. Thody. (His 2nd vol. included 1942-1951, translated from the French and annotated by J. O'Brien).

The Stranger (French: L'Étranger), also published in English as The Outsider, is a 1942 novella by French author Albert Camus. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of Camus' philosophy, absurdism, coupled with existentialism; though Camus personally rejected the latter label. The title character is Meursault, an indifferent French settler in Algeria described as "a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an homme du midi yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture."Weeks after his mother's funeral, he kills an Arab man in French Algiers, who was involved in a conflict with one of Meursault's neighbors. Meursault is tried and sentenced to death. The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder, respectively. Meursault learns of the death of his mother, who has been living in an old age home in the country. He takes time off from work to attend her funeral, but he shows no signs of grief or mourning that the people around him expect from someone in his situation. When asked if he wishes to view her body, he declines, and he smokes and drinks regular (white) coffee - not the obligatory black coffee - at the vigil held by his mother's coffin the night before the burial. Most of his comments to the reader at this time are about his observations of the aged attendees at the vigil and funeral, which takes place on an unbearably hot day. Back in Algiers, Meursault encounters Marie, a former secretary of his firm. The two become re-acquainted, swim together, watch a comedy film, and begin to have an intimate relationship. All of this happens on the day after his mother's funeral. Over the next few days, Meursault helps Raymond Sintès, a neighbor and friend who is rumored to be a pimp, but says he works in a warehouse, to get revenge on a Moorish girlfriend he suspects has been accepting gifts and money from another man. Raymond asks Meursault to write a letter inviting the girl over to Raymond's apartment solely so that he can have sex with her and then spit in her face and throw her out. While he listens to Raymond, Meursault is characteristically unfazed by any feelings of empathy, so he does not express concern that Raymond's girlfriend would be emotionally hurt by this plan and agrees to write the letter. In general, Meursault considers other people either interesting or annoying, or feels nothing for them at all. Raymond's girlfriend visits him on a Sunday morning, and the police get involved when he beats her for slapping him after he tries to kick her out. He asks Meursault to testify that the girlfriend had been unfaithful when he is called to the police station, to which Meursault agrees. Ultimately, Raymond is let off with a warning.

The Fall is the third and last novel of this philosopher, published in 1956. Within his work can identify the existentialist line of his thinking, also reflects the philosophy of the absurd in the sense of approval and disenchantment with the affirmation Of positive and negative qualities in the dignity and fraternity of the human being. Camus considered the absurdity of the human condition as a tragic inability to comprehend and transcend in every situation that involves the subject, the same lineage is exposed in the description of a seemingly irrational world in which the individual seeks his sense of life as he is Protagonist of this novel.

ABOUT THE PLAGUE The first new translation of The Plague to be published in the United States in more than seventy years, bringing the Nobel Prize winner's iconic novel ("A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair." --The Washington Post) to a new generation of readers. The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation, and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, as well as a timeless story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence. In this fresh yet careful translation, award-winning translator Laura Marris breathes new life into Albert Camus's ever-resonant tale. Restoring the restrained lyricism of the original French text, and liberating it from the archaisms and assumptions of the previous English translation, Marris grants English readers the closest access we have ever had to the meaning and searing beauty of The Plague. This updated edition promises to add relevance and urgency to a classic novel of twentieth-century literature.

Albert Camus remains one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Camus's observations of American life are at once insightful and hard-hitting; a reflection of his own dreams, fears, and desires; and a symbol of his intense struggle to find an ethic in that sober decade of human history.