First edition of the French version translated and adapted by Albert Camus, a numbered copy (3223) on alfa paper, inscribed and signed to half-title signed by Camus to the creator of one of the roles, "à Jean Vinci avec les remerciements et la fidèle pensée d'Albert Camus" ["to Jean Vinci, with the thanks and faithful thoughts of Albert Camus"). 1 volume, small 8vo (105 x 165 mm). 171 p. + [8]. With preface by Camus. Half green leather, two raised bands. Very fine. TOGETHER WITH (laid in): Typed Letter Signed. 1 p. Paris, 15 November, 1957. A warm letter, thanking Vinci for his congratulations on his recently awarded Nobel Prize (translated, "I was extremely touched by your expression of sympathy, and I just wish to thank you from my full heart, and assure of you my most grateful sympathies"). An important copy in an elegant binding.

This version of the play was first performed at the Festival d'Art dramatique d'Angers, 16 June, 1953, with Jean Vinci creating the role of Fortuné. 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 the first of these was Les Esprits, which “provides an immediate link with Camus’ Algerian apprenticeship. Pierre De Larivey’s Les Esprits was first adapted by Camus in 1940 with the Équipe in mind. It was first performed by a student company in Algiers in 1946, but the version produced for the Angers Festival in 1953 was completely revised. Larivey’s play, dating from the 1570s… [is] transitional between the Italian commedia erudita and French classical comedy… Camus shortened the play from five to three acts, eliminated three characters (Elisabeth, Pasquette and Désiré), cut much of the dialogue and modernized the rest… It afforded him the technical challenge of simulating the commedia dell’arte” (Freeman, Theatre of Albert Camus, 121-23).