TOUS CEUX QUI TOMBENT [ALL THAT FALL] PIÈCE RADIOPHONIQUE.

Limited edition (issued simultaneously with the first trade edition). Inscribed by Samuel Beckett to his publisher John Calder. One of seventy copies printed on Marais pure linen rag paper, this copy is no. 23. Crown 8vo, pages untrimmed and uncut. Stitch-bound. Original paper wraps lettered and ruled in blue and black to front and rear panels. A fine, unread copy, the binding square and firm, the contents and wraps bright and clean. Housed in a custom folding blue and white cloth box lined with marbled paper, lettered and ruled in gilt to a red leather label affixed to the spine. A lovely association copy.

Inscribed by Beckett in blue ink to the front endpaper, "For John / from Sam / Paris Avril / 1966". The recipient, John Calder (1927-2018), the author's friend and his long-standing UK publisher, issued all Beckett's prose from the 1950s until (and after) the author's death in 1989 (the dramatic works were handled by Faber and Faber). 'All That Fall' was written for the BBC Third Programme (it wasn't commissioned, but "suggested"). In a letter to Nancy Cunard (4 July 1956), Beckett writes "Saw Barry of BBC TV who is interested in the mime (and why not?) and am told Gielgud wants a play for 3rd Programme. Never thought about radio play technique but in the dead of t'other night got a nice gruesome idea full of cartwheels and dragging of feet and puffing and panting which may or may not lead to something." The play was finished (in English) by September, the autograph copy ("Ussy September 1956") bearing the title, "Lovely Day for the Races" (a clue to the Irishness of the play). The finished and retitled play, directed by Donald McWhinnie, with Mary O'Farrell and J. G. Devlin as Maddy Rooney and her blind husband, Dan, was broadcast on the Third Programme on Sunday 13 January, 1957. The play, unusually naturalistic for its author, is suffused with memories of and allusions to his Foxrock childhood. First published in the US by Grove Press with the Faber edition following in August, the French translation is credited to Beckett's friend and fellow playwright, Robert Pinget, though Federman and Fletcher note that Beckett (as usual when he wasn't the sole translator) "thoroughly revised the text" before its publication in October 1957. (Federman and Fletcher 146.1).