Les Mots: [Les Temps Modernes, nos 209-210]

True first, integral printing of Sartre's autobiography of his childhood, "Les Mots", published in two successive issues of his own monthly "Les Temps Modernes". Paris, October & November 1963 (2 volumes), 8vo, pp. 577-649 and 769-834 [total = 577-959]; printed wrappers. - Small imperfection at the top of one of the lower wrappers, but in fact, very good unread copies (difficult to find better). -


Early 1960s Sartre was a hated person by a huge part of the public opinion, in France and abroad, but when "Les Mots" was first published in book-form by Gallimard, April 1964, it was unanimous praised as a literary success and one of his best books. To quote Sartre's biographer Annie Cohen-Solal: "De l'avis de tous, Les Mots restera sans aucun doute le chef-d'oeuvre d'un écrivain surdoué et polyvalent ... , doublé d'un intellectuel engagé qui n'eut de cesse de faire entendre sa voix pour traquer l'injustice dans le monde et d'un héritier subversif qui traversa les frontières entre genres et entre cultures, avec une allégresse insigne." But the mother of the author, Anne-Marie Schweitzer, had her own opinion. She dryly commented: "Poulou n'a rien compris à son enfance."