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Octavo, 278 pages. In Good condition with a Good minus condition dust jacket. Blue-grey and black spine with black, red, and white lettering. Dust jacket is wrapped in a mylar covering, price is uncut "$3.00 net", has moderate shelving wear, mild to moderate wear along the extremities, chipping along the joints and fore edges, scratches on the rear cover, tears along the head edges and spine, and moderate age-toning. Boards have mild age-toning along the head and tail edges, mild wear along the extremities, stains on the rear board, and bending wear along the spine head and tail edges. Text block has mild splitting to the gutter pages 89-121, stains on the rear end-page and paste-down, moderate age-toning throughout, mild wear along the edges, and faded dark red inking along the head edge. DL consignment. Shelved in Case 6. Albert Camus was born November 7, 1913 in Dréan, Algeria (then French Algeria). Camus' mother was deaf and illiterate, his father killed in acting in 1914 serving in World War I and he would grow up very poor pied-noir (a slang term for French and other European people born in Algeria). Camus would be diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1930, at which time he moved in with his uncle Gustave Acault. Living with his uncle, Camus found a great love for philosophy, taking particularly to Greek philosophers and Nietzsche. This love of philosophy would push Camus to completing a degree in philosophy in 1936. During and after his time in university, Camus would join the Algerian Communist Party and Algerian People's Party, both of which sought freedom from colonial rule in Algeria. Camus' work with the ACP greatly involved organizing the "Théâtre du Travail" [Worker's Theater] which would be renamed "Théâtre de l'Equipe" [Theater of the Team] after Camus and the ACP split. Some of the scripts written for "Théâtre de l'Equipe" would become the basis for his later novels. In 1938 Camus solidified his anti-colonial feelings, working for a leftist newspaper which spoke out against the colonial regime as well as the rising fascist regimes across Europe. In 1940 Camus moved to Paris after the banning of the newspaper, there producing his "first cycle" of works on the absurd, including his most famous work "L'Étranger" ("The Stranger"). With the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of France, Camus fled Paris, moving first to Lyon in southeast France, then to Algeria, and then to the Frech Alps to recover from a flare up of tuberculosis. It was in the Alps that Camus began work on his "second cycle" of works, now dealing more with revolt. "La Peste" or "The Plague" would be published in 1947 in France, and in 1948 in the US riding on Camus' infamy gained both for his earliest works and for his role in the French Resistance against German occupation. It depicts the Algerian city of Oran amidst a devastating plague and many different people's reactions to it, from feelings of despair to those who fight bravely against the illness. Both Camus' own tuberculosis and a cholera epidemic which killed a large portion of Oran in 1849 were inspirations for the novel, though it was set in the 1940's. The novel has been noted as allegorical for the French resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II. Upon it's release, "The Plague" received generally positive critical reception with moderate commercial success. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the novel became a best-seller with publisher Penguin Classics reporting difficulties matching demand. Many hailed "The Plague" as a reflection of the time, with lockdown measures compared to the novel's cordon sanitaire, and Camus' own daughter noting that it should be inspiration for people to take responsibility in how they reacted to the pandemic. 1387500. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.
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