(London: Chatto & Windus, 1931).

FIRST EDITION OF THIS VERY SCARCE EARLY WORK BY SAMUEL BECKETT, ONLY HIS SECOND BOOK, ESSAYS ON THE WRITINGS OF PROUST. Beckett wrote 'Proust' during his stay at the École Normale in Paris in the summer of 1930. Written in response to a commission set forth by Richard Aldington, Thomas MacGreevy and Charles Prentice. Beckett states, on behalf of his subject,  We cannot know and we cannot be known. The language is both allusive and dense, and served as Beckett's aesthetic and epistemological manifesto. The essay is far more concerned with with Beckett's own preoccupations and influences than it actually is with its titular subject. Item #29721

First edition of Beckett s second book. 8vo, original cream boards extensively decorated with pictorial designs on both covers and the spine in brown, in the original and scarce dustjacket of cream paper decoratively printed in blue. Now housed in a red cloth slipcase with morocco label gilt and chemise. 72 pp. A very fine and attractive copy, the cloth and jacket as pristine and essentially mint, the text-block equally fine.