ILL SEEN ILL SAID

California: Lord John Press. 1982. Signed limited edition. Signed limited edition. Original blue marbled paper-covered boards, quarter-bound in gilt-ruled blue calf with lettering in gilt to the spine. Designed and printed by Henry Morris and bound by Bela Blau. Set in Bembo to Bugrabutten mouldmade paper, the fore-edges untrimmed. A fine, bright copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. A lovely example. Signed by the author in black ink to the half title. This example numbered 132 of 299 copies; there were in addition an issue of twenty-six specially bound and lettered copies. Beckett worked on and completed the translation of 'Mal Vu Mal Dit' during December and January of 1980-1, while still working on the original French version, which was completed the same January. The work's first appearance in English, following its publication in French by Les Éditions de Minuit, was in the 5 October 1981 issue of 'The New Yorker', followed by the Grove Press trade edition before the end of the year, the UK (Calder) edition following in 1982. 'Ill Seen Ill Said' is one of the late, great, concentrated prose works (perhaps the finest) published during the last decade of the author's life. "[N]arrated in the third person, [...] its central figure a dying old woman alone amid the snows at lambing time, [...] 'Ill Seen Ill Said', short though it be, is one of the glories of late twentieth-century literature, or, indeed, of world literature of any period." (John Banville in the 'New York Review of Books', August 1992). (Samuel Beckett, 'Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho, Stirrings Still' ed. Dirk Van Hulle [London: 2009]). Further details and images for any of the items listed are available on request. Lucius Books welcomes direct contact with our customers.