There is no specific statement regarding the original edition of L'Étranger.

The bibliographic information is based on several elements.

The printing completed date on the final page is April 21, 1942. This represents the first printing of the edition. As a general rule, since this information is a legal requirement, it is the only element that is never falsified for commercial purposes.

However, in the case of L'Étranger, this alone is insufficient, as this same printing was divided into three issues:

• Seven issues of 500 copies each bear a "false edition statement": second edition, third edition... eighth edition, printed at the head of the cover and at the foot of the title page (beneath the publisher's name). These are called "false statements" because they represent a commercial strategy intended to suggest multiple reprintings due to great success, when in fact all copies came from the same print run. (Copies bearing ninth edition and higher are genuinely later reprintings.)
• The first issue (also 500 copies) bears no statement whatsoever (not even "first edition").
• The review copies (400 copies, some of which were lost) bear the notation "S.P." at the foot of the title page.

This last group constitutes both the smallest issue and the first to be printed. It serves as the deluxe issue in the absence of special paper copies, to which Albert Camus—a young, unknown author newly arrived from Algeria—was not entitled. (Since March 1942, the government had ordered paper rationing for publishers, forcing them to drastically limit print runs and paper quality.)

This copy is therefore the most valuable possible, as it belongs to this very first issue and is moreover printed on paper that has remained intact, whereas most have become brittle and heavily browned.