L’Exil et le Royaume

Faithful to this diversity of language and tone, Camus offers this remarkable collection of short stories, written between 1954 and 1955. It brings together “La Femme adultère,” “Le Renégat,” “Les Muets,” “L’Hôte” and “Jonas ou l’artiste au travail.” Camus wrote of it: “La Chute, before becoming a long récit, was part of L’Exil et le Royaume. This collection comprises six stories […]. Yet a single theme, that of exile, is treated in six different ways, from interior monologue to realistic narrative. The six stories were, moreover, written one after another, although they were later revised and reworked separately. As for the royaume also evoked in the title, it coincides with a certain free and naked life that we must rediscover, in order finally to be reborn. Exile, in its own way, shows us the paths toward it, on the sole condition that we know how to refuse, at the same time, both servitude and possession.”
A very fine copy bound by Semet et Plumelle.