The mysterious manuscript of ‘The Stranger’ by Albert Camus is auctioned

A complete manuscript of the famous novel ‘Abroad‘ by the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus is auctioned this Wednesday, June 5, at the Tajan room in Paris. Its price is estimated between 500,000 and 800,000 euros.

“Its history and precise dating are mysterious,” notes the auction house in the presentation of the manuscript, which has 104 handwritten pages. The mystery has to do with the date. Camus ends the manuscript with the inscription ‘April 1940’.

The work ‘The Stranger’ was actually written at that time in Paris, and corrected until September 1941, before being published by Gallimard in May 1942. However, specialists in the author Albert Camus believe that this manuscript It dates back to 1944, based on the testimony of the philosopher’s wife, Francine Camus, and several other clues.

So, if it is not a working manuscript, why would Camus reproduce his work in this way? Furthermore, why do the deletions, additions and sketches, absent in the first edition, seem to feign hesitations in the creative process?

“Some passages are covered in deletions, and additions between lines and in the margins. All of this, dotted with arrows and cross references, “details the auction house.” Camus composes 14 sketches in the margins, which sometimes seem like hidden jokes, “he points out.

This invaluable piece of the history of French literature has already been auctioned twice, in 1958 and 1991. Since then, it has belonged to a collector whose identity has not been revealed.

‘The Stranger’, a novel of which 4,400 copies were printed for the first time, became one of the classics of French literature; Millions of copies were sold. In the work, Meursault, a young office worker from Algiers, recounts the murder of an anonymous Arab citizen that he committed, for reasons that remain unclear. The story is divided into two parts, featuring Meursault’s first-person narrative before and after the murder.

Additional sources • AFP