BECKETT, Samuel. Watt. New York: Grove Press. 1959.
8vo. Grey and brown cloth-backed boards with gilt lettering on spine and front cover; pp. [9], 8-254; slight fading of lettering on spine; otherwise fine.
First US Edition, specially bound and signed edition of 27 lettered copies of which this is copy letter "I".
Although not published until 1953, Watt was written a decade earlier and was Samuel Beckett's second published novel in English. Due to Beckett's status as an early French Resistance fighter, it was mainly written on the run in the South of France as he hid from German occupying forces during WWII. In an interview in 1961, Beckett was quizzed on the subject of form to which he answered; "To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now" and Watt is a key example of Beckett's famous novelistic rebellion. Written in four chapters with various annotations, as well as an addenda at the end of the book featuring unincorporated material, Watt's disturbed narrative places precedent on language itself- a crucial impetus for the author's later preference for writing in French over English.
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