BECKETT, Samuel. Watt. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. 1968.
8vo. Original white wrappers, title lettered to spine and front cover in black, with a glassine wrapper, housed in a black morocco-backed black cloth solander box, titles to red label on spine; pp. [4], 7-268, several pages unopened, near fine.
First French edition, number 63 of 92 copies printed on Bouffant and reserved for La Librarie des Editions Minuit.
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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