Books

First edition in English, first impression, including a new preface by Camus and his essays "Summer in Algiers", "The Minotaur, or The Stop in Oran", "Helen's Exile", "Return to Tipasa", and "The Artist and His Time". Camus's absurdist treatise on the philosophical problem of suicide was first published as Le Mythe de Sisyphe in 1942. Addressing his English readers, Camus comments that, "written fifteen years ago, in 1940, amidst the French and European disaster, this book declares that even within the limits of nihilism it is possible to find the means to proceed beyond nihilism... This book is in a certain sense the most personal of those I have published in English". It acts as a non-fictional companion to his novel L'Étranger (1942). The translator, Justin O'Brien (1906-1968), was a professor of French at Columbia University who translated many works by Camus and certain works by Jean-Paul Sartre and André Gide, including Gide's collected journals. This copy is from the library of the author and bookseller Larry McMurtry (1936-2021) and has his stirrup bookplate on the front pastedown. Octavo. Original blue boards, spine lettered in silver. With dust jacket. Gentle bump to foot and centre of spine, creasing to fore edge of a couple of early gatherings, browning to endpapers; bright jacket unclipped, a couple of tiny nicks: a very good copy in near-fine jacket. .

The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay by Albert Camus. It explores the concept of the absurd and discusses how one can live a meaningful life despite its inherent meaninglessness.