War Diaries

Jean-Paul Sartre's Notebooks from a Phoney War, 1939–1940

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First UK edition, first printing. Hardback in dustwrapper. 20.5 × 14cm, 365pp

During the phony war that preceded the invasion of France, between late 1939 and the summer of 1940, the young Jean-Paul Sartre was stationed in his native Alsace as part of a meteorological unit. He used his considerable periods of spare time, between mundane duties like watching weather balloons, to make a series of notes on philosophy, literature, politics, history and autobiography that anticipate the themes of his later masterpieces, and often surpass them in literary verve and directness. These War Diaries form a portrait of Sartre in his most intense and brilliant phase. With them the twentieth century’s most remarkable and public philosopher has provided us with a fitting posthumous monument to his honest and creativity.

Condition

The book itself is in very good condition, but with some foxing to the pages' top edge and a few specks of foxing to the fore-edge. The main body of text in very good, clean condition. The dustwrapper has a little rubbing to the edges but is also very good.

ISBN

0860910873