En attendant Godot
Price: $4,000.00
Original Wraps. Paris: les èditions de Minuit, 1952. Near Fine.
First trade edition, first printing (preceded only by a limited edition of 35 signed and numbered copies). One of 2,500 copies. Publisher's original publisher's white paper wrappers, lettered in blue and black. About fine, with a hint of toning to spine and edges, a touch of wrinkling to spine ends, a small closed tear to top edge of rear wrapper, and some toning to the pages, as usual. Overall, an exceptional copy. En attendant Godot is an absurdist play about two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who converse in witty and amusing banter while they wait for someone named Godot. Beckett, an Irish author and native English speaker, wrote this and many of his most famous works originally in French. In 1954, Beckett translated this text from French into English, and it was published in London by Faber and Faber in 1956 under the English title Waiting for Godot. The play originally premiered in Paris at the Théâtre de Babylone in January 1953, and this first edition uses the text from that production; the subsequent English edition contains the text used by the Criterion Theater for its production of the play after the London premier in August 1955 at the Arts Theater, including the "small number of textual deletions" that were made as per Lord Chamberlain's requirements in accordance with the strict UK theater censorship of the 1950's. Many subsequent productions have since altered Beckett's original text, leading to a bit of a discrepancy as to which version is the definitive text, but this French text is irrefutably the original. A theatrical masterpiece, the play has been called "among the most studied, monographed, celebrated and sent-up works of modern art, and perhaps as influential as any from the last century" (Charles Isherwood, The New York Times). Item #SB031
