One of 120 copies on pur fil Vidalon paper (no. 102), this copy nominative for Madame P.-E. Clairin.
Enriched with 4 original signed watercolors by the artist (mounted at front), three of them dated: “Abd el Tif 11 mai 51”; “Abd-el-Tif 1951” and “Alger 16 mai 51,” and with one of the 25 color suites printed on vergé pur fil de Montval.
Signed presentation inscription: “à Madeleine et Pierre Eugène Clairin, ces [Noces] qui nous ont réunis, une fois de plus, autour d'un des plus beaux lieux du monde, avec les remerciements et les amitiés fidèles d'Albert Camus.”
This first illustrated edition is also the first illustrated version of a text from Camus’s Algiers period — his foundational, sun-drenched early years. Neither Révolte dans les Asturies nor L’Envers et l’Endroit ever received such treatment. The graphic reinterpretation of Noces — first published by Edmond Charlot in 1939 — could only, and should only, be undertaken by a fellow traveler of Algiers, “one of the most beautiful places in the world.” Who better suited to the task than a resident of the Villa Abd-El-Tif — in this case, Eugène Clairin? It was Marcel Damboise (or Pascal Pia, according to some sources), the sculptor and fellow resident of this “Algerian Villa Médicis,” who introduced him to Camus in 1935. Clairin had entered the villa in 1929, having won its first prize.
Camus wrote the preface for Clairin’s first exhibition in France, held in 1947 at the Galerie Charpentier. In 1954 the two men collaborated again, producing 12 lithographs to illustrate La Femme adultère (The Adulterous Woman). This remains the only instance of a Camus text receiving an illustrated first edition published simultaneously with its original text, issued that same month of March 1954 by Éditions Gallimard.
A fine copy, elegantly bound, probably for the Clairin couple, in sober vellum with the title painted in gouache.
Provenance: Clairin library (inscription); Elvire Choureau (bookplate).