The theme of this novel by Albert Camus is the persistent pursuit of happiness even when its price is crime. The adventures of the hero, Meursault (the same name as the protagonist of "The Stranger"), are fueled by the experience of a difficult and passionate youth - poverty, illness, travels in Central Europe and Italy, life with his three friends in the "House in front of the World" ("a house where you do not have fun but a house where you feel happy") but also the solitary life at the foot of Mount Senois. "A Happy Death" was written in the 1930s but was published in France after the author's death.

"Meursault breathed deeply the bitter and fragrant smell that blessed this evening, his marriage to the earth. This evening that fell upon the world, on the path between the olive trees and the mastic trees, over the vineyards and the red soil, near the sea that whispered softly, this evening flooded him like a tide. Similar evenings were for him like a promise of happiness and when he indeed felt it as happiness, he could calculate the path he had traveled from hope to conquest. With innocence in his heart, he accepted this green sky and this earth dampened by love with the same tremor of passion and desire, as when he killed Zagreus with innocence in his heart."