FRANKLIN LIBRARY LEATHER Five Plays JEAN-PAUL SARTRE "Signed 60" Edition

Description: FRANKLIN LIBRARY FIVE PLAYS JEAN-PAUL SARTRE Illustrated by Robert Borja Beautiful Fully Leatherbound Limited Signed edition One of the "Signed 60" Collection, privately printed by the Franklin Library, and individually signed by late author Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Sartre began his career as a dramatist in a German prison camp: "It was behind barbed wire that I understood what real freedom is." In Stalag XII at Trier in 1940, Sartre wrote, staged, and himself played a leading role in Bariona. Performed on Christmas Day, the play, in the guise of a biblical story, presented to his fellow prisoners a message of resistance. It was through this experience that Sartre discovered the power of drama to communicate to modern man: …on this occasion, as I addressed my comrades across the footlights, speaking to them of their state as prisoners, when I suddenly saw them so remarkably silent and attentive, I realized what theatre ought to be - a great collective, religious phenomenon. Bariona marked not only the start of Sartre's work in drama but also his conversion to "une literature engagee," a literature committed to social change. The five plays presented in this beautiful volume, that carries Sartre's signature, share an overriding concern with human freedom. Exploring the issue in political and philosophical contexts, he reveals the anguish and hopes that characterize his vision of the human condition. Through his drama, Sartre attempts to change the world by changing man's very conception of himself. Sartre made his major impact on our world as an apostle of existentialism. Sartre's existentialism is rooted in a vision of man born into an absurd and incomprehensible universe, which provides no preordained moral code to guide him and no ultimate reason for his existence. In this meaningless world, one must create one's own destiny. It is by one's choices and acts that a person shapes his existence and thus invests it with its essence or quality. Sartre sums up the necessity of providing the meaning of one's own existence in the famous formulation: "Existence precedes essence." Sartre needed to create a dramatic form that would express his ideology of freedom. It was as an act of participation in the Resistance that Sartre wrote "Les Mouches" (The Flies) in 1943. The play's libertarian message, addressed to the people of occupied France, gained enormous impact from the circumstances in which it was produced. The sordid image of oppressive authority, the repetition of the word "liberte," the call to tyrannicide - all these were part of Sartre's conspiracy with his compatriots in the audience. Revising the myth of Orestes, Sartre makes The Flies a political allegory of France's occupation by German troops. The people of Argos are suffering from a blight of communal guilt for a crime they did not commit. As dupes of a policy devised by Zeus and Aegisthus, they wallow in penitent submission to authority, plagued by flies that sting them to remorse. Their debasement is presented as a mirror of the French under the Vichy regime. This government urged the French people to regard the occupation as a just punishment for their frivolity and wickedness. As Marshal Petain proclaimed in 1941: "We must suffer and suffer again, for we have not yet paid for all our sins." Commenting on the play in 1948, Sartre makes clear his intention to combat this submissive attitude: By writing my play I was trying by my own unaided effort, feeble though it might be, to do what I could to root out this sickness of repentance, this complacence in repentance and shame…. The people who were revolted by the Vichy government, who regarded it as an abject thing, all those in France who wished totally to reject domination by the Nazis, understood the play remarkably well. The five plays presented in this Franklin Library edition are: Huis Clos (No Exit), 1945, Les Mouches (The Flies) 1943, Les Mains Sales (Dirty Hands), 1948, La Putain Respectueuse (The Respectful Prostitute), 1946 and (Les Sequestres d'Altona) The Condemned of Altona (1959). Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris on June 21, 1905. His companion of many decades was Simone de Beauvoir, whom he met at the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1929. Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, but he declined the prize in protest of the values of bourgeois society. He died, in Paris, on April 15, 1980. This beautiful book features: Full Tooled Leather Scarlet Binding Hubbed Tooled Leather Spine Lovely Satin bookmark, sewn in Elaborate 22-karat gold lettering and ornamentation on the spines, front and back boards Gilding on all page edges, to protect against dust and moisture Decorative French moire silk endpapers Wonderfully reproduced illustrations and original artwork in full color Special author introduction written in 1978 for this Franklin Library signed edition, and not found in any other edition 22 PAGE 'NOTES FROM THE EDITORS' BOOKLET INCLUDED Acid neutral paper, designed to last generations without discoloring or degrading Acid-free leaves Smyth-sewn for longevity, durability and readability FINE Exterior condition FINE Interior condition 484 Pages Every book you buy from us will be wrapped and packed securely in a sturdy new box for shipment to you. WE NEVER SHIP IN PADDED ENVELOPES, because books are frequently damaged this way, particularly their delicate corners. Please check out our other auctions for fine Franklin Library and Easton Press books. We love our books. We think you will, too. THIS BOOK WAS MADE IN AMERICA

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End Time: 2025-02-01T18:01:22.000Z

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