Beckett, Samuel

8vo (186 x 120mm.), first edition, NUMBER 429 OF 500 COPIES ON ALFA PAPER (out of a total edition of 3,000), PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ("for Alan Clodd | Samuel Beckett | Paris Oct. 1971") on title page, original paper covers printed in black, original glassine, collector's black chemise and matching cloth slipcase, tiny nicks to glassine

Federman & Fletcher 257

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

INSCRIBED PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST NOVEL IN THE AUTHOR'S GREAT POST-WAR TRILOGY, on which, together with his play Waiting for Godot, so much of Beckett's reputation rests. For notes on Alan Clodd, see lots 11 and 61.

The Malone trilogy, like his other later works, were born out of Beckett's experiences of "uncertainty, disorientation, danger, deprivation, and exile. While visiting his mother in Foxrock he also had a 'revelation' which marked something of a turning point in how he approached his writing: ‘Molloy and the others came to me the day I became aware of my own folly. Only then did I begin to write the things I feel’ ... He recognized ... that he had to divorce himself from Joyce's stylistic influence. Now he realized that he had to follow a radically different path from Joyce, who believed that knowledge was a creative way of understanding and controlling the world. Beckett's ‘own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than adding’ .... Light, knowledge, understanding, and success were replaced by darkness, impotence, ignorance, and failure..." (James Knowlson, Oxford DNB).