L'étranger

Original issue for which he has not been fired large paper and having the correct one colophon, false entry of the fifth edition.
Unique and important autograph dedication signed by the author René Leynaud "the story of another world, but at least there friendship kept its place."
A tear without loss that affected the back and the front cover of coverage was very skilfully restored.
This first edition of The Stranger was pulled to 4400 copies 21 April 1942 and divided into eight dummy "edition" of 550 copies. Camus, who was then living in Oran "received a copy - one for his author's copies were lost en route." (See Albert Camus H. Lottman). It was not until August 1942, when he arrived in France, to cure his tuberculosis he could autograph a few copies of the original edition. Are known to date only two or three copies of this edition with a handwritten dedication contemporary.
Our copy, unknown until then, was offered by Camus Rene Leynaud symbolic figure of the Lyon resistance and until his tragic death, one of the most beautiful friendships of Albert Camus.
The autograph dedication, dated June 1943, is in a copy of the original edition. He probably was recovered directly from Gaston Gallimard which Albert Camus visited earlier this month, during his short stay in Paris. (Francis Ponge mention this meeting in his letter of July 8: "Your action corridor on GG"). As of June 13, Albert Camus finds René Leynaud Lyon with Francis Ponge and Michel Pontromelli, it will make them the opportunity to read the misunderstanding. (Cf. Camus / Ponge correspondence. Note of the letter of 8 July 1943). It was during this stay, no doubt, that his friend Camus offers this copy.
René Leynaud, entered in the first months in the Resistance, very impressed Albert Camus and probably contributed to his greater efforts, particularly within the Combat network whose Leynaud became regional chief in Lyon under the pseudonym Clair.
This is also to René Leynaud that will be dedicated Letters to a German friend, who is one of the largest intellectual interests Camus in the Resistance.
Poet and journalist, Camus and Ponge Leynaud frequent during the years 1943 and 1944 during his visits to Lyon Camus staying with him in his little room "as his friends know well" the street of the Old Mint, since renamed rue René Leynaud. That's where the secular melancholic and heroic Christian born immediate and unwavering friendship. Despite the difficulties of the time, the two men write and often found in Lyon, Saint Etienne or Paris. They talk about literature: that of their mutual friend, Francis Ponge: "I talked with Leynaud my stay in Lyon. I was glad to hear him say that your work seemed the only significant from Mallarmé "(letter to Ponge of May 20, 1943); that unpublished Leynaud of it shows that his few friends, "so they know think badly of me as they think good. "(Foreword by Rene in Leynaud, Posthumous Poems); and, of course, that of Camus, who shares with him his current work as The Misunderstanding and The Plague: "I gave the journal messages an excerpt from my novel I would like to read you. (...) These are pages that you will understand, you will see why "(letter to René Leynaud 17 January 1944).
Running Leynaud will Camus one of the most tragic loss of his life: "Never has a man's death was sounded that much in me. (...) With him, I could see clearer and death, far from making me better, as it says in the comforting books, made my blinder revolt. "Camus leaves little written about Leynaud, refusing to use his memory:" we do not serve him who has used one. (...) We will keep him what he would have preferred the silence of our heart, the attentive and remember the terrible sadness irreparable. " However, some texts in which he talks modestly this bright meeting among the finest literary proofs of friendship and admiration.
Excerpts from the article published in the journal Combat, October 27, 1944, one day after the official announcement of his death that prevented him from despondency to comment on the same day:
"It was difficult to talk yesterday (...) what was for us a terrible, atrocious new. And yet, (...) we need to talk about it so that the memory of the Resistance guard, not in a nation that may be forgetful, but at least some attention to quality human hearts. (...) The senseless tragedy of Resistance lies entirely in this terrible disaster. For men like Leynaud had entered the fight, convinced that no being could speak before paying him. The trouble is that the war without uniform lacked the terrible justice of the war itself. The bullets hit the front anyone, the best and the worst. But for four years, they are the best that are designated and have fallen, they are the best that have earned the right to speak and lost the power to do so. The one we liked anyway no longer speak. Yet France needed voice like his. This proud heart of all, long silent between his faith and his honor would have been able to say the words he needed. But it is now forever silent. (...) The best of [the resistance] died. We say this because we deeply believe, if we are still here is that we have not done enough. Leynaud has done enough. (...) Perhaps, the death of such a man is too expensive for the right price given back to other men to forget in their actions and in their writings what has been won for four years the courage and sacrifice some French. "
On 13 December, Camus address Helen Leynaud a letter including the following passages:
This is a terrible and awful news. I carry with me all this time and I can not tear myself away. Today my bitter regret is not having enough told him how much I loved him and how his life was dear to me. But men do not talk about that. They expect to have lost and then it is too late. Now we must admit this unfair and stupid death, measure everything we and our country have lost a man like him. (...) It was what I knew best and purest. Nothing will ever pay this terrible death. (...) I cried with rage on hearing. Today I have no words to express my sorrow. (...) I will not tell you that his sacrifice was not in vain for his country. No one knows. But I know that he agreed with himself and with this truth he defended to the end. That is enough for me to know that he died the heart at peace. Forgive me, Ellen, I imagine your immense pain and I want to tell you the part that I have, but I feel my heart too tight to continue. "
In 1947, he meets with Francis Ponge some unpublished poems by René Leynaud and prepare a moving foreword about life, commitment, and the poetry of their mutual friend:
"I have not known one being that the magnet, not loved him with all her might. (...) Who can justify this terrible death? What are the duty, virtue, honor to what was irreplaceable in Leynaud (...) otherwise poor alibis of those who remain alive? "
Finally it's still Leynaud Camus think receiving his Nobel Prize in 1957:
"Among the few things that were present in me (...) Rene was at the forefront. Years passed and I am not comforted him. He was my brother, not by blood but by heart and mind and in the penalties as in the joys, he missed me, darkly, for thirteen years. This excess honor given to me, it would have helped me to endure with dignity (...). And that day, it is to him that I thought a heavy heart. "(Letter to Louise Leynaud November 13, 1957)
In December 1944, he wrote his sentence Helen Leynaud, we read in the book Camus these words:
"December. This heart full of night and tears. "