Set in the volatile Paris summer of 1938, The Age of Reason follows two days in the life of Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, and his circle in the cafés and bars of Montparnasse. Mathieu has so far managed to contain sex and personal freedom in conveniently separate compartments. But now he is in trouble, urgently trying to raise 4,000 francs to procure a safe abortion for his mistress, Marcelle. Beyond all this, filtering an uneasy light on his predicament, rises the distant threat of the coming of the Second World War.

The Age of Reason is the first volume in Sartre’s Roads to Freedom trilogy

This is a new release of the original 1936 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1927 edition.

1927. With an introduction by Storm Jameson. The French 18th century writer Jacques Cazotte was a man of great imagination and foresight. Some contemporaries credited Cazotte's literary talent to his infamous occult-dabbling, which probably involved the Ouija board and crystal-ball scrying. Cazotte was also something of a prophet who scored more hits than misses. One pleasant summer evening in 1788, an assembly of notabilities settled down to a Parisian dinner party and talked of the approaching shadow of the Revolution. They asked Cazotte to forecast future events. It is documented that many of his predictions that evening came came to pass. He ended up being executed during the Revolution.

Memoir Of The German Ambassador To America During WW1.

Memoir Of The German Ambassador To America During WW1.

Memoir Of The German Ambassador To America During WW1.

1927. With an introduction by Storm Jameson. The French 18th century writer Jacques Cazotte was a man of great imagination and foresight. Some contemporaries credited Cazotte's literary talent to his infamous occult-dabbling, which probably involved the Ouija board and crystal-ball scrying. Cazotte was also something of a prophet who scored more hits than misses. One pleasant summer evening in 1788, an assembly of notabilities settled down to a Parisian dinner party and talked of the approaching shadow of the Revolution. They asked Cazotte to forecast future events. It is documented that many of his predictions that evening came came to pass. He ended up being executed during the Revolution.

September 1938: in a heatwave Europe tensely awaits the outcome of the Munich conference. In Paris people are waiting too, among them Mathieu, Jacques and Philippe – not one of them ready to fight. Cutting from one scene to the next, Sartre depicts the hopes, fears, and self-deception of Munich, building a powerful montage of that critical week when Europe, in its pathetic longing for a reprieve, blinkered itself against the threat of war.