Prométhée aux enfers
One of 250 copies on white vélin (no. 105).
Signed presentation inscription: “à Max Delatte, avec les souvenirs sympathiques d'Albert Camus.”
Written in 1946 and published the same year in “Messages de la Grèce,” a special issue of the review Le Voyage en Grèce, this text was later reprinted in L’Été in 1954.
The figure of Prometheus here anticipates the reflection of L’Homme révolté: his loyalty to mankind and his refusal of servitude give the myth its full relevance in postwar Europe. This is one of the earliest publications of Jean-Jacques Pauvert, then at the very beginning of his career under the Palimugre imprint, under which he had also published Sartre’s Explications de L’Étranger.
Copy inscribed to Max-Philippe Delatte (1914-1989), with his bookplate. A bookseller and publisher established at 133, rue de la Pompe, in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, Delatte received a number of inscribed works from Camus, who called him the “prince of books.” Robert Chatté, a dealer in rare editions and a friend of Camus, sold many of his books through him. Copies inscribed to Delatte are known of La Peste, Noces, L’Homme révolté, La Chute, Actuelles, Les Esprits and the volume devoted to Chamfort.
A fine copy, preserved in its original state, in sheets, in cardboard wrappers with dust jacket.