Happy Death
Happy Death by Albert Camus is a reissue published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group on August 29, 1995. This edition spans 208 pages and is presented in English. The novel, written when Camus was in his early twenties, explores the life of an Algerian clerk, Patrice Mersault, who commits murder and embarks on a journey marked by exile, hedonism, and existential reflection. It serves as a precursor to Camus’s later work, The Stranger, revealing the author’s early thoughts on existence and moral responsibility.
Readers will find A Happy Death to be a candid exploration of the protagonist’s inner turmoil and philosophical musings. The narrative delves into themes of absurdism and the human condition, showcasing Mersault’s complex relationship with life, love, and death. Through this work, Camus presents a vivid portrait of his youthful self, capturing his fascination with the sea and sun, as well as his disdain for conventional romantic ideals. This edition invites readers to engage with the foundational ideas that would later define Camus’s literary legacy.
Official synopsis Publisher
The first novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author lays the foundation for The Stranger, telling the story of an Algerian clerk who kills a man in cold blood.
In A Happy Death, written when Albert Camus was in his early twenties and retrieved from his private papers following his death in 1960, revealed himself to an extent that he never would in his later fiction. For if A Happy Death is the study of a rule-bound being shattering the fetters of his existence, it is also a remarkably candid portrait of its author as a young man.
As the novel follows the protagonist, Patrice Mersault, to his victim’s house — and then, fleeing, in a journey that takes him through stages of exile, hedonism, privation, and death -it gives us a glimpse into the imagination of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. For here is the young Camus himself, in love with the sea and sun, enraptured by women yet disdainful of romantic love, and already formulating the philosophy of action and moral responsibility that would make him central to the thought of our time.
Translated from the French by Richard Howard
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