Heir to a Chicago plumbing company fortune, he lived a life so adventurous that he was the prototype for characters in at least three thrillers. Seldom seen on the public stage, he changed the course of history: once when he intervened with his friend Woodrow Wilson on behalf of another friend, Thomas G. Masaryk, to create a new nation, Czechoslovakia, and again when he sent a geologist to his friend Ibn Saud to prospect the Arabian sands for oil. Mostly, though, he was a man who used his ...

The unfinished manuscript of The First Man was discovered in the wreckage of car accident in which Camus died in 1960. Although it was not published for over thirty years, it was an instant bestseller when it finally appeared in 1994. The 'first man' is Jacques Cormery, whose poverty-stricken childhood in Algiers is made bearable by his love for his silent and illiterate mother, and by the teacher who transforms his view of the world. The most autobiographical of Camus's novels, it gives p...

Is it possible to die a happy death? This is the central question of Camus's astonishing early novel, published posthumously and greeted as a major literary event. It tells the story of a young Algerian, Mersault, who defies society's rules by committing a murder and escaping punishment, then experimenting with different ways of life and finally dying a happy man. In many ways A Happy Death is a fascinating first sketch for The Outsider, but it can also be seen as a candi...

The stories of Exile and the Kingdom explore the dilemma of being an outsider - even in one's own country - and of allegiance. With intense power and lyricism, Camus evokes beautiful but harsh landscapes, whether the shimmering deserts of his native Algeria or the wild, mysterious jungles of Brazil.Here a Frenchwoman is gradually seduced by the sheer difference of North Africa, a mutilated renegade is driven mad by the cruelty of his own people, and a barrel-maker watches the slow ...

The Rebel is Camus's 'attempt to understand the time I live in' and a brilliant essay on the nature of human revolt. Published in 1951, it makes a daring critique of communism - how it had gone wrong behind the Iron Curtain and the resulting totalitarian regimes. It questions two events held sacred by the left wing - the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 - that had resulted, he believed, in terrorism as a political instrument.In this towering intellectual...

'An irresistibly brilliant examination of modern conscience' The New York TimesJean-Baptiste Clamence is a soul in turmoil. Over several drunken nights in an Amsterdam bar, he regales a chance acquaintance with his story. From this successful former lawyer and seemingly model citizen a compelling, self-loathing catalogue of guilt, hypocrisy and alienation pours forth. The Fall (1956) is a brilliant portrayal of a man who has glimpsed the hollownes...

Jean-Paul Sartre's first published novel, Nausea is both an extended essay on existentialist ideals, and a profound fictional exploration of a man struggling to restore a sense of meaning to his life. This Penguin Modern Classics edition is translated from the French by Robert Baldick with an introduction by James Wood.Nausea is both the story of the troubled life of an introspective historian, Antoine Roquentin, and an exposition of one of the most influential an...

'Tallis writes with clarity and wit' Sebastian FaulksScience, technology and western liberal democracy have all had a dramatic impact on our quality of life. Compared to previous generations, we have unprecedented access to information, increased personal freedom, more material comforts and more possessions. Yet, even before the shock of Covid-19, more people than ever before were reporting being depressed, anxious or unfulfilled. As our material circumstances become easier, life s...

Part of the Penguin Classics campaign celebrating 100 years of Albert Camus, 'A Sea Close By' reveals the writer as a sensual witness of landscapes, the sea and sailing. It is a light, summery day-dream.Accompanying 'The Sea Close By' is the essay 'Summer in Algiers', a lovesong to his Mediterranean childhood.

In this profound and moving philosophical statement, Camus poses the fundamental question: If human existence has no meaning, is life worth living?'What I touch, what resists me - that is what I understand'As Camus argues, if there is no God to give meaning to our lives, humans must take on that purpose themselves. This is our 'absurd' task, like Sisyphus condemned forever to roll a rock up a hill. Written during the bleakest days of the Se...

Meursault leads an apparently unremarkable bachelor life in Algiers until he commits a random act of violence. His lack of emotion and failure to show remorse only serve to increase his guilt in the eyes of the law, and challenges the fundamental values of society - a set of rules so binding that any person breaking them is condemned as an outsider. For Meursault, this is an insult to his reason and a betrayal of his hopes; for Camus it encapsulates the absurdity of life.In The Out...

'A story for our, and all, times' GuardianSet in a town consumed by a deadly virus, The Plague is Albert Camus's world-renowned fable of fear and courageThe townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign th...