University of Delaware Library

Special Collections
Samuel Beckett: A Celebration

Fizzles

Pour finir encore et autres foirades. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, [1976].

First collected edition of Foirades and several other short prose pieces. This copy contains the publisher's wrap-around advertising band and a postcard questionnaire surveying reading habits

Fizzzles Fizzles. New York: Grove Press, 1976.

First American edition of Samuel Beckett's translation of Foirades, his collection of short, compressed prose texts.

Gift of Sir Joseph Gold
Beckett, Samuel, 1906- 1989.
Foirades, with thirty-three etchings by Jasper Johns. [London]: Petersburg Press, 1976.

Samuel Beckett produced some of the most important literary collaborations with artists in the twentieth century. This collection of short prose pieces, paired with Jasper Johns's etchings, is one of the most famous artist's books of our time, and was included in the important Museum of Modern Art exhibition, A Century of Artists Books (1995).

Gift of the University of Delaware Library Associates
Jack Coughlin
Woodcut portrait of Samuel Beckett, 1981
Melva B. Guthrie Fund
Rockaby and Other Short Pieces. New York: Grove Press, [1981].
a. This first edition collects Rockaby along with Ohio Impromptu, All Strange Away, and A Piece of Monologue. Rockaby was first performed in Buffalo, New York, in a production directed by Alan Schneider, with Billie Whitelaw playing "Woman and Voice."

Gift of Sir Joseph Gold
b. Advance proof copy consisting of unbound, unsewn signatures.

Gift of the University of Delaware Library Associates
ThreeOccasional Pieces Three Occasional Pieces. [London]: Faber and Faber, [1982].
First English edition of A Piece of Monologue, Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu.

Gift of Sir Joseph Gold
Solo; suivi de Catastrophe. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, [1982].

This copy is number 38 of an edition of 99 numbered copies.
Company. London: John Calder, [1980].

This copy is number 15 of a limited, numbered edition of 100 copies, signed by the author and specially bound, which was printed in advance of the first British edition.

Gift of Sir Joseph Gold
Company Company. New York: Grove Press, [1980]. Uncorrected proof copy of the first American edition in a dust wrapper.
Company by Samuel Beckett. [Iowa City, Iowa]: Iowa Center for the Book, 1983.

This edition of Company is one of Beckett's most successful, and elegant collaborations with a book artist. Michigan artist Dellas Henke was commissioned by the Iowa Center for the Book to illustrate Company as its first production, under the auspices of the printer Kim Merker. Henke had previously illustrated Beckett's Waiting for Godot for Merker's Windhover Press. Company was set and printed by hand on Arches Cover paper in an edition of fifty- two copies signed by the author and the artist. The thirteen etchings were pulled from plates by the artist. The binding is by William Anthony.
Ill Seen Ill Said. London: John Calder, [1982].

This is an advance proof copy of the first British edition of Beckett's translation of his text published earlier in French as Mal Vu Mal Dit.

Gift of Sir Joseph Gold
Ill Seen Ill Said. Northridge, Calif.: Lord John Press, 1982.

This is number 86 of an edition limited to 299 numbered copies all of which have been signed by Samuel Beckett. The book was designed and printed by Henry Morris, proprietor of the Bird & Bull Press, for Lord John Press.

Gift of Sir Joseph Gold
Dårligt set dårligt sagt; på dansk ved Uffe Harder; raderinger af Leif Lage. [S.l.]: Brøndum, 1983.

This Danish translation of Mal Vu Mal Dit was published in an edition of 800 and includes two etchings by the artist Leif Lage.
Worstward Ho Worstward Ho. New York: Grove Press, [1983.]

First American edition of this highly condensed work of prose fiction. The front dust wrapper illustration is by Alberto Giacomatti.

Gift of Sir Joseph Gold

As the Story was Told. [Cambridgeshire] England: Rampant Lions Press, [1987].

This fine press production was designed and printed in an edition of three hundred and twenty-five copies by Sebastion Carter. It is an experimental rendering of a short Beckett text set on one line, with parallel passages and textual variants above and below in a second color.

Introduction | Early Works | First Novels | Trilogy | Godot | After Godot
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Last modified: 12/21/10

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