There are too many myths about Camus. One of the most persistent, first propagated in Britain by Cyril Connolly's Introduction to the 1946 translation of L'Etranger, was that he 'played a notable part in the French Resistance Movement'. The much-photographed figure in a trench coat, with Humphrey Bogart features, certainly looked like Hollywood's idea of an underground hero. In fact, Camus derailed no more trains than Sartre. What he did do, from the winter of 1943-4 onwards, was help the Resistance circuit 'Combat' with its clandestine newspaper of the same name. But this had been started three years earlier by Henri Frenay, and even when Camus joined it he only gradually assumed a leading editorial role.

LRB 15 July 1982 | PDF Download