Item #559 En attendant Godot [Waiting for Godot]. Samuel Beckett.
En attendant Godot [Waiting for Godot]

En attendant Godot [Waiting for Godot]

Vladimir: That passed the time. Estragon: It would have passed in any case.

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY BECKETT on the title page; one of the most influential works of modern drama.

“Voted the most significant English language play of the 20th century in a British Royal National Theatre poll of 800 playwrights, actors, directors and journalists... Beckett's naked play about two tramps waiting for Godot has tapped into our 20th-century public consciousness. It seems to express our deepest fears and our deepest knowledge of ourselves and our predicament” (Norman Berlin). Notably, the first edition of the text provided the public with their first experience of the complete play—Les Editions de Minuit published it three months before the play’s debut (in French) in January 1953. “The first production of Beckett's own English translation, directed by Peter Hall, was staged at the Arts Theatre Club in London in August 1955. Kenneth Tynan's and Harold Hobson's reviews made it into an intellectual hit which has since been regarded as having transformed the British stage” (DNB).

Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1952. Octavo, original wrappers; custom half-leather box. Text in French. Some browning and rubbing to spine. Extremely rare signed.

Price: $20,000 .

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