CAMUS, Albert (1913-1960). Two PRESENTATION COPIES inscribed to Belgian writer and painter Jean de Bosschère, comprising:

L'État de siège. Spectacle en trois parties. Paris: Gallimard, 1948. 8vo. Half-title. (Browning as usual.) Original printed wrappers (spine panel darkened); quarter morocco folding case. Provenance: A. M. Antomin (presentation inscription). FIRST EDITION, ordinary issue. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY CAMUS on half-title: "A Jean de Bosschère assiege sure anso mars insoumais [L'Etat de Siege] are Esperes a plus cordials Albert Camus." Critics and the public expected a dramatization of Camus’ La Peste (1947), but L'État de siege was different in tone, and was initially poorly received. Despite this, the work has remained almost constantly in print in French since its first publication.

Les Justes. Paris: Gallimard, 1950. 8vo. Half-title. Original wrappers; original glassine (small sticker on spine of glassine). FIRST EDITION, ordinary issue. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY CAMUS on half-title: "A Jean de Bosschère [crossing through "Les"] an nom des que vous no sommes sens tes cordialement Albert Camus." Camus' play is based on the true story of a group of Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries who assassinated the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in 1905.

De Bosschère lived for most of the 20th century between London and France, and illustrated his own works as well as the works of Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, and the classical works of Aristophanes, Ovid, Strato and Apuleius. He published his own works of poetry, and in 1952 was awarded the Prix de la Méditerranée and in November the Mandat des Poètes.