Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre, translated by Robert Baldick (Hamish Hamilton) — with School Prize Plate

This Hamish Hamilton edition of Nausea (translation first published 1949) is of interest to collectors of Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialist philosophy, mid-century French literature in translation, and books with interesting provenance.

About: Very Good copy in the original red cloth binding with the striking Patricia Davey designed dust jacket — dark grey textured ground with bold pale blue lettering; dust jacket in a clear protective sleeve, bright and sound with some light rubbing to extremities; a handsome prize copy with a St. Clement Danes Grammar School prize plate to the front free endpaper, awarded to W.D. Shepherd for British Constitution, signed by the Head Master; binding firm and square; pages clean and bright; the rear panel lists Sartre's Roads to Freedom trilogy — The Age of Reason, The Reprieve, and Iron in the Soul — with the Hamish Hamilton imprint to the spine.

Details:

• Title: Nausea (La Nausée)
• Author: Jean-Paul Sartre
• Translator: Robert Baldick
• Jacket Design: Patricia Davey
• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, London
• Translation first published: 1949
• Binding: Hardcover — original red cloth
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good (in clear protective sleeve; bright and sound; light rubbing to extremities)
• Provenance: St. Clement Danes Grammar School prize plate — awarded to W.D. Shepherd for British Constitution; signed by Head Master

Synopsis: Hamish Hamilton edition, Robert Baldick translation first published 1949; striking Patricia Davey dark grey dust jacket in protective sleeve; St. Clement Danes Grammar School prize plate with Head Master signature; rear panel listing Roads to Freedom trilogy; appealing to collectors of Sartre, existentialist philosophy, and books with interesting institutional provenance.

Review: Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, first published in French as La Nausée in 1938 and translated into English by Robert Baldick for Hamish Hamilton in 1949, is the foundational novel of existentialism — a diary-form narrative in which Antoine Roquentin, a historian living in voluntary exile in the provincial town of Bouville, experiences a growing and overwhelming sense of the contingency and absurdity of existence. The novel established Sartre as one of the defining intellectual figures of the 20th century and remains essential reading in philosophy, literature, and cultural history. This copy carries the additional interest of a St. Clement Danes Grammar School prize plate — awarded for British Constitution, a pleasing irony given Sartre's lifelong engagement with questions of freedom, authority, and the state — and the Head Master's signature adds a further layer of period character.