Éducation européenne

Written during the war while Romain Gary was serving, from July 1942, with the Lorraine resistance group, this first novel was published in English at the end of 1944 under the title Forest of Anger. The French version was reworked between November 1944 and March 1945, and published in the summer of 1945.

The novel is dedicated to a young comrade from the Lorraine group, Robert Colnacap, and won the Prix des critiques on 7 November 1945, praised by Maurice Nadeau and Albert Camus. Gary himself was the first to be surprised by its success: “What is happening?” he wrote to his friend Raymond Aron: “I am receiving astonishing letters from Albert Camus, the most beautiful, most moving letter you could imagine from Martin du Gard […]. I receive an astounding note from Gaston Gallimard, who had always turned down my manuscripts and who now asks for my next book.”

Romain Gary inscribed very few copies of his first book, and almost always to close friends within the publishing world or to companions from his years of combat with the Lorraine group. Known inscribed copies include those sent to Maurice Nadeau, Francis Dumont (an editor at Calmann-Lévy), Roland Feuvrier, Maria Errázuriz, Pierre Calmann and Raymond Aron — the first four on the deluxe paper.

A very fine copy, rare in this state.