“Caligula” and Three Other Plays, by Albert Camus, translated by Stuart Gilbert, Vintage Book, a division of Random House and Alfred A. Knopf, New York. First American US Edition (1958), late 1960s printing with 9-digit ISBN number added on the back cover [copyright page is identical to the 1958' printing and does not contain any ISBN#].

Paperback, 4.1/4" x 7.1/4"; ink inscription on the half-title page, 302 Pages + 'About the Author' mentioning Camus' death in 1960, tight binding, very good condition.

This anthology of four philosophical dramas illustrated the significant shift in Camus's perception of the human condition. The plays range from existential musing on the absurd to the dramatization of action and revolt in the name of liberty. The plays making up this collection were written between 1938 and 1950, and include:

Caligula.
The Misunderstanding.
State of Siege.
The Just Assassins.

Albert Camus notes in his Preface that, although he has "the most passionate attachment for the theater," he has "the misfortune" of liking only one kind of play, whether comic or tragic. He concludes that there is no true theater without language and style, nor any dramatic work which does not, like our classical drama and the Greek tragedians, involve human fate in all its simplicity and grandeur. Without claiming to equal them, he says, these four plays are "at least the models to set oneself."

Caligula is young emperor of Rome. So far he has been a just and good leader. But the recent death of his sister and lover Drusilla has caused him to see things in a new light: love does not last, man is profoundly alone, all men- even emperors- must die, and most human beings spend their lives denying or trying to escape from these verities. Since there is no hope and the gods are a sham, everything is possible—even the impossible. And as emperor, Caligula is in a unique position to attempt the "impossible." So he starts governing capriciously and outrageously like Fate itself, whimsically executing people, enacting reckless new laws, antagonizing virtually everybody but especially the patricians. Reminding the Romans that their comfortable security is a façade beneath which they hide their terror of death, he rips away the facade by subjecting them to arbitrary, unpredictable and often lethal actions. In the end, of course, the patricians work up their courage and kill him, but not before he realizes that his actions have reinforced his loneliness and failed to bring him the godlike satisfaction—the “impossible”—that he sought.

Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.

Camus did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as one, even in his lifetime. In a 1945 interview, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked..."

Camus was born in Algeria to a Pied-Noir family, and studied at the University of Algiers from which he graduated in 1936. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons to "denounce two ideologies found in both the USSR and the USA".

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