MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS

Advance proof copy of the Picador first edition. Publisher's original red limp cloth covers, with black titles printed on a white label to the front. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth lightly faded to the spine, with just a hint of toning to the rear cover edges, a light crease to the front cover, and a little rubbing to the extremities. The contents, with some spotting to the top edge of the closed text block, are otherwise clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Scarce.

First published in 1934, 'More Pricks than Kicks' was Beckett's first published book of prose fiction, its ten stories partly quarried from the earlier, posthumously published, novel 'A Dream of Fair to Middling Women' (1932). Beckett, content not to republish the stories, eventually relented owing to an increasing demand for them (and the increasing prices being paid for the 1934 Chatto edition). Calder and Boyars re-issued the book in 1970, this Picador printing was issued in paperback in 1974.