BECKETT, Samuel. Waiting for Godot (Rare first edition second issue)

London: Faber and Faber, 1956. First English edition, second issue, in same year as first. pp. 94. Original yellow cloth, titled in red along spine. Intermittent foxing; jacket spine toned, spine head a little worn, rubbing and a few nicks to edges, unclipped: a very good copy in like jacket. Ownership signature. A very good copy of the rare first edition second issue. in lightly frayed dust jacket, with a few nicks.
The text is translated from the original French by Beckett himself. The publisher’s tipped-in notice explains that this edition was subject to occasional textual deletions by the Lord Chamberlain and uses the version of the text as performed at the Criterion Theatre from 12 September 1955. The unexpurgated text was not published in the UK until 1965. Beckett’s translation was first published in New York by the Grove Press in 1954. The premiere of En attendant Godot (1952) on 5 January 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris, “was responsible for Beckett’s rise to worldwide fame, as the play rapidly became an object of intense international interest and controversy.

[Cat 162]