Author: Beckett, Samuel:

Title: Waiting for Godot. A Tragicomedy in Two Acts.

Publication: London: Faber and Faber, 1956.

Description: First UK edition. 8vo., pp.94, small printed slip with a note from the publisher tipped in after title-page. Clean and bright within. Yellow cloth, red title to spine. Top edge a little dusty, a little very faint toning and a few pencilled booksellers' notes to ffep, rear pastedown not properly glued down resulting in a little cockling at the hinge, very good indeed. Dust jacket a little tattered at head and tail of spine, a bit rubbed along top edge but also very good indeed.

This first UK edition marks the third appearance of the play in text form. First came En Attendant Godot, Beckett's initial, subtly different French-language version. It was published by Les ?ditions de Minuit in Paris in 1952 in advance of the first theatrical performance, with only 2500 copies being printed. Next, the first English-language edition was published in New York by the Grove Press in 1954, ahead of the its debut performance at the Arts Theatre, London, on 3rd August 1955. The Faber edition of 1956 here marks the first publication of the play in the UK, and contains the censored text as performed in a slightly later production at the Criterion Theatre. A tipped-in slip added by the publisher notes that when the play transferred from the Arts Theatre to the Criterion, 'a small number of textual deletions were made to satisfy the requirements of the Lord Chamberlain.' It would be nearly a decade before the unexpurgated text had its first performance in England, at the Royal Court Theatre on 30 December 1964.

Bibliography:

Reference Number: [54977]

Price: £450

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