Estimated at €500,000- 800,000, it took €550,000/£467,500 (€656,000 including premium).
Although signed and dated Avril 1940, the 104 pages were written in 1944 when the author, a member of the Resistance, was in dire need of money.
It includes numerous corrections, variants and remarks from the published version and is also embellished with 13 original sketches in the margins.
The author’s wife Francine Camus (1914-79) later affirmed “that this manuscript was written in 1944, after the publication of L’Étranger, by Camus, under the dictation of [fellow novelist] Josette Clotis, no doubt to satisfy the young writer’s need for money”.
L’Étranger stands as the third most widely read French-language novel in the world.
As reproductions of extracts from the manuscript are not authorised, only the author’s signature and the binding are available for publication.
