First edition of the French version translated and adapted by Albert Camus, a numbered copy (3133) on alfa paper, inscribed and signed to half-title signed by Camus to the creator of one of the roles, "à Jean Vinci, en souvenir du beau Lisardo qu'il incarna / avec l'amical souvenir d'Albert Camus" ["to Jean Vinci, in memory of the beautiful Lisardo whom he embodied / with the friendly remembrance of Albert Camus"). 1 volume, small 8vo. (105 x 165 mm). 169 p. + [3]. With preface by Camus. Half green leather, two raised bands. Very fine.  An important copy in an elegant binding.

This version of the play was first performed at the Festival d'Art dramatique d'Angers, 14 June, 1953, with Jean Vinci creating the role of Lisardo. His name appears on the printed cast list in the present volume.  

Camus focused on translating or adapting the works of others in his last decade and among these is the present work by Spanish Baroque poet and playwright Pedro Calderón dela Barca y Henao (1600-1681) who used the stage to interpret and champion Catholicism, to battle the Reformation, and to exalt the monarchy. His play La Devoción de la Cruz (The Devotion of the Cross) portrays the career of a youthful gangster who is ultimately saved from hell through his devotion to the Cross, the symbol of divine grace. Albert Camus, who considered Calderón "the greatest dramatic genius Spain ever produced," was so drawn to the play and its message of "the grace which transfigures the worst of criminals" that he translated it into French, as La Dévotion à la Croix (1953). 

Born in Algeria, Camus was a member of the French Resistance during World War II, a journalist, and author of such classics as The Stranger, The Plague, and The Myth of Sisyphus. “Associated with the philosophy of existentialism, Camus was concerned with the basic ‘absurdity’ of life and the dilemma of the individual who must establish an identity for himself and find a meaning for his life in a world in which he is essentially alone. His plays are dramatizations of this dilemma” (Hochman, McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, 447). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 at the age of 44, making him the second-youngest recipient in history. His output and cultural legacy are all the more remarkable for his tragic early death at 46.