Signed presentation inscription: “à Georges Bataille, son vieil ami, Albert Camus.”
A fine provenance for this stage adaptation of Dostoevsky’s novel: Bataille was one of the few to defend Camus at the time of the publication of L’Homme révolté.
“In 1951-1952, at the time of the Lautréamont controversy and the publication of L’Homme révolté (…) another voice made itself heard: that of the author of Madame Edwarda, L’Expérience intérieure and La Part maudite — the voice of Georges Bataille. In issues 55 (December 1951) and 56 (January 1952) of the journal he edited, Critique, Bataille defended Camus and L’Homme révolté (in which he saw a major book), against Breton (…). A year later, in December 1952, following the May issue of Les Temps Modernes devoted to Camus, Bataille again came to Camus’s defense in issue no. 67 of Critique.” (Albert Gauvin, “Bataille à propos de Camus: Le temps de la révolte,” Rédact, online, December 2012).
The exchanges between the two men were infrequent but sustained, and they sent each other several of their books: L’Abbé C., Le Bleu du ciel, Le Coupable, La Part maudite and Sur Nietzsche were inscribed to Camus, while Camus, according to the library catalogued by Henri Vignes, gave Bataille his study on Chamfort, Actuelles II, three plays — Les Esprits, La Dévotion de la croix — and this copy of Les Possédés.