MOLLOY

First John Calder edition, first printing (previously issued as a Calder Jupiter Book). Original blue cloth lettered in silver to the spine, in dustwrapper. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and lettering sharp and bright, the contents clean throughout. In the fine, bright dustwrapper. Not price-clipped (£4.95 to the front flap). A lovely, bright copy of a curiously scarce edition.

Beckett began writing 'Molloy' (in its original French) in May 1947 while in Ireland, completing it back in France just six months later, on 1 November 1947. The novel, one of the extraordinary series of prose and dramatic works written between 1946 and 1951, was first published in English (translated by Beckett and Patrick Bowles) in 1955 by the Olympia Press in Paris, and issued sixth months later by Grove Press in New York. It didn't appear in the UK until 1959, when it was included in a single volume published by Calder and Boyars along with 'Malone Dies' and 'The Unnameable', the other two novels in what has become known (against the author's wishes) as a trilogy. 'Molloy' didn't appear as a single volume in the UK until 1966 when it was issued by Calder as a Jupiter Book. This 1976 edition was the first to be issued under the unadorned John Calder banner, with the iconic Calder design.