WAITING FOR GODOT

First UK paperback edition, first printing. Original laminated card wrappers designed by Berthold Wolpe. A better than very good copy, the binding square and firm, the contents, except for a previous owner's neat address stamp to half title and title page, clean throughout. Faded to the spine. The laminate has lifted on and around the spine owing to age related shrinking and stretching of the coating. Correctly priced 4s. 6d. net to the verso of the front cover. A clean, sound copy of the uncommon first Faber paperback edition of Beckett's debut play, including the cuts called for by the Lord Chamberlain and the publisher's explanatory note.

'En attendant Godot', composed between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949, was published by Les Éditions de Minuit in 1952, the premiere, directed by Roger Blin, taking place at the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris on 5 January 1953. The first performance of Beckett's own English version of the play (subtitled "a tragicomedy in two acts") took place at the Arts Theatre Club, London, on 3 August 1955, with Peter Woodthorpe as Estragon, Paul Daneman as Vladimir, Timothy Bateson as Lucky, Peter Bull as Pozzo, and Michael Walker as the Boy. It was directed by Peter Hall and designed by Peter Snow, later transferring to the Criterion Theatre, for which a small number of textual deletions were made "to satisfy the requirements of the Lord Chamberlain". The first UK edition, published by Faber in 1956 was of that expurgated text, with a small publisher's note loosely laid in following the copyright page. The second impression followed the same year with the same cuts but the note printed instead of laid in. Two more reprints followed in 1957 and 1961. In 1959, Faber issued this first paperback edition with the same cuts and explanatory note. It was reprinted twice (1962, 1964) before the complete and unexpurgated English text was performed in December 1964 at the Royal Court Theatre, London. The restored text was published by Faber in 1965, the front flap noting that the new edition was "authorised by Mr. Beckett as definitive." (Federman and Fletcher 373.11).