The Stranger

Also known as The Outsider

1942 novel by Albert Camus

AI overview

"The Stranger" is a 1942 novel by Albert Camus that tells the story of an emotionally detached man living in Algeria who commits a murder and faces trial. The novel is considered influential in exploring themes of alienation and the meaninglessness of existence, becoming a key work in existentialist literature.

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Book · Open Library

Author: Mark Twain
First published: 1916
Editions: 82
Subjects: American Humorous stories, Social life and customs, Open Library Staff Picks, Fiction, Manuscripts, Devil, American fiction (fictional works by one author), Twain, mark, 1835-1910

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Wikidata facts

Image: L'Étranger - Albert Camus.jpg

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title: L'Étranger
inception: 1940-05-00
publication date: 1942-00-00
Dewey Decimal Classification (works and editions): 843.914
Library of Congress Classification (works and editions): PQ2605.A3734
first line: Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. J’ai reçu un télégramme de l’asile : « Mère décédée. Enterrement demain. Sentiments distingués. » Cela ne veut rien dire. C’était peut-être hier.
Commons category: The Stranger (Camus)

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Article

The Stranger (French: L'Étranger [letʁɑ̃ʒe], lit. 'The Foreigner'), also published in English as The Outsider, is a 1942 novella written by French author Albert Camus. The first of Camus' novels to be published, the story follows Meursault, an indifferent man in French Algeria, who, weeks after his mother's funeral, kills an unnamed Arab man in Algiers. The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative before and after the killing.

Camus completed the initial manuscript by May 1941, with revisions suggested by André Malraux, Jean Paulhan, and Raymond Queneau that were adopted in the final version. The original French-language first edition of the novella was published on 19 May 1942, by Gallimard, under its original title; it appeared in bookstores from that June but was restricted to an initial 4,400 copies, so few that it could not be a bestseller. Even though it was published during the Nazi occupation of France, it went on sale without censorship or omission by the Propaganda-Staffel.