MERCIER ET CAMIER

First trade edition, first printing. Printed by Corbiére et Jugain in Alençon, Orne, 27 April 1970. Original white card wraps (with flaps), lettered and ruled in blue and black to spine, front, and rear panels. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. There are a handful of small splash-stains to the front and rear panels, and a little rubbing to edges and corners. The paper used for the trade edition is lightly toned (as usual). A nice copy.

The first trade edition, issued simultaneously with a limited edition of three hundred numbered copies printed on Lafuma [1-99] and Bouffant [100-300] paper, and ninety-two numbered copies retained by the publisher. Beckett wrote 'Mercier et Camier' in Paris between July and October of 1946. He'd spent the final years of the war hiding out in Roussillon, in unoccupied France (as a wanted man because his work for the French Resistance), which may have influenced his decision, after the war, to adopt French as his primary literary language. 'Mercier et Camier' was the first novel that he wrote in French (following the novella-length 'Premier Amour' and Le Calmant). Although the writing seemed to come quite easily, he was unable to find a publisher for the work, and he put it aside to work on 'Molloy', 'Malone Meurt' and 'L'Inommable' (1947-50), and the plays 'Éleuthéria' and 'En attendant Godot' (1949). The novel, with it's eponymous vaudevillian down-and-out protagonists, has often been seen as a foreshadowing of Godot (on p. 61, the phrase "rien à faire" [nothing to be done] ppears, which became the famous opening words of the play). 'Mercier' remained in Beckett's bottom drawer for twenty years until, in 1969, his publisher, Jérôme Lindon, who wanted to publish something in the wake of the author's receipt of that years Nobel Prize in Literature, persuaded him to publish the novel (he began the English translation the following year). (Samuel Beckett, 'Mercier and Camier', ed. Seán Kennedy [London: 2012]).