First edition to appear in the UK of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece
BECKETT, Samuel (author and translator). Waiting for Godot, a tragicomedy in two acts. London: Faber and Faber Limited. 1956.
8vo. Publisher's maize-yellow coloured cloth, lettered in red to spine, in photographic dustwrapper with a scene from the play to upper panel and a photographic portrait of Beckett to lower one; pp. [viii], 9-94, complete with tipped-in Publisher's Note following the title-page to explain the textual deletions that were required by the Lord Chamberlain; externally near fine with extremely faint foxing to foreedge of book block with upper edge toned, internally fresh minus offsetting from pastedown, rubbbing to spine ends and forecorners and with small nicking to head and heel of dust jacket; otherwise very good copy.
First UK edition of one of the most influential plays in modern drama.
Waiting for Godot was first published in French, as "En attendant Godot", by Les Editions De Minuit in Paris in 1952, three months before the play's debut performance. It was then published in English, translated by Beckett himself, in the U.S., in 1954, by Grove Press, New York. The first production of this, Beckett's own English translation, directed by Peter Hall, was staged at the Arts Theatre Club in London in August 1966. In 1937 he moved to Paris, where he lived until his death, claiming “because in French it is easier to write without style”. Irish born Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. Waiting for Godot remains one of his most renown literary contributions.
On Waiting for Godot, the flap blurb of our edition explains; "Its form is unusual; its contents weird; its chief themes are madness, boredom, suffering, cruelty: yet the effect of its inspired cross-talk is hilarious".
#2120730