More Pricks Than Kicks

Beckett, Samuel

ISBN 10: 0714507040 / ISBN 13: 9780714507040

Published by Calder Publications, 1970

About this Item

1970. First Edition. hardcover. One of one hundred copies, numbered and signed by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), this is copy number 2, from the library of Édith Fournier, who worked with him on the French translations of his works. Signed and numbered on copyright page, this copy is bound in original white quarter calf over orange cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, all edges gilt. Spine tanned with a tiny scuff, otherwise like new. Housed in the original matching orange cloth slipcase, showing light shelf wear. First published in Britain by Chatto & Windus in 1934, this limited edition was republished by Calder and Boyars in 1970. 'More Pricks Than Kicks' is a collection of ten witty and satirical short stories about an Irish intellectual. The stories chart the life of the book's main character, Belacqua Shuah, from his days as a student to his accidental death. Beckett took the name Belacqua from a figure in Dante's Purgatorio, a Florentine lute-maker famed for his laziness and who had given up on ever reaching heaven. . . . Signed Copy. Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # KSG0043456

Bibliographic Details

• Title: More Pricks Than Kicks
• Publisher: Calder Publications
• Publication Date: 1970
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0714507040
• ISBN 13: 9780714507040
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

Fiction. "More Pricks Than Kicks", Beckett's early tragicomic masterpiece, is a collection of stories about Belacqua, a student in Dublin in the twenties, his adventures, encounters and amours, that through its original style and wry commentary succeeds in turning everyday incidents into high drama and lets us see street and university life through the observant and caustic wit of the author. Highly enjoyable to read, it delights in exuberant language and the pleasure of discovery, very typical of the young writer who in the post-war years was to astonish the world with Waiting for Godot and Molloy. First published in 1934, "More Pricks Than Kicks" is Beckett's second work of fiction. It serves as an excellent introduction to the later work of one of the most seminal and exciting major writers of the twentieth century.

About the Author

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906 and graduated from Trinity College. He settled in Paris in 1937, after travels in Germany and periods of residence in London and Dublin. He remained in France during the Second World War and was active in the French Resistance. From the spring of 1946 his plays, novels, short fiction, poetry and criticism were largely written in French. With the production of En attendant Godot in Paris in 1953, Beckett's work began to achieve widespread recognition. During his subsequent career as a playwright and novelist in both French and English he redefined the possibilities of prose fiction and writing for the theatre. Samuel Beckett won the Prix Formentor in 1961 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. He died in Paris in December 1989.