 After completing Nuptials, Camus began to work on a planned triptych on the Absurd: a novel, which became The Stranger, a philosophical essay, eventually titled The Myth of Sisyphus, and a play, Caligula. These were completed and sent off from Algeria to the Paris publisher in September 1941. Although Camus would have preferred to see them appear together, even in a single volume, the publisher for both commercial reasons and because of the paper shortage caused by war and occupation, released The Stranger in June 1942 and The Myth of Sisyphus in October. Camus kept working on the play, which finally appeared in book form two years later (Lottman, 264–67).