# Is "More Pricks Than Kicks" by Samuel Beckett a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of More Pricks Than Kicks by Samuel Beckett (Chatto & Windus, 1934) is identified by: First edition, Chatto & Windus, London, 1934 (Federman & Fletcher 16); 278 pp., the title page dated 1934 with no printing statement or number line. The census claim is confirmed: Chatto & Windus, London, 1934 is the true first, and there is no contemporaneous American edition or competing original-language edition — the title went unreprinted for thirty-six years.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, Chatto & Windus, London, 1934 (Federman & Fletcher 16)
- 278 pp., the title page dated 1934 with no printing statement or number line
- Binding is original tan cloth with the spine titles lettered in blue
- The book was issued in a dust jacket which is very rare — of the 1,500 copies printed only about 500 sold, and only a handful of jacketed copies are thought to survive; a jacket, where present, should be examined closely for facsimile or restoration
- Ten linked stories about Belacqua Shuah, drawing on the then-unpublished Dream of Fair to Middling Women; this is Beckett's first published book of fiction, preceded as a separate publication only by the poem Whoroscope
- and the critical essay Proust
- Publisher imprint reads Chatto & Windus

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Samuel Beckett |
| Publisher | Chatto & Windus |
| Year | 1934 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, Chatto & Windus, London, 1934 (Federman & Fletcher 16) |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, Chatto & Windus, London, 1934 (Federman & Fletcher 16); 278 pp., the title page dated 1934 with no printing statement or number line. Binding is original tan cloth with the spine titles lettered in blue. The book was issued in a dust jacket which is very rare — of the 1,500 copies printed only about 500 sold, and only a handful of jacketed copies are thought to survive; a jacket, where present, should be examined closely for facsimile or restoration. Ten linked stories about Belacqua Shuah, drawing on the then-unpublished Dream of Fair to Middling Women; this is Beckett's first published book of fiction, preceded as a separate publication only by the poem Whoroscope (1930) and the critical essay Proust (1931).

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is confirmed: Chatto & Windus, London, 1934 is the true first, and there is no contemporaneous American edition or competing original-language edition — the title went unreprinted for thirty-six years. It reappeared only in 1970, when Calder & Boyars published it in London and Grove Press published the first American edition in New York. Precedence is therefore uncontested.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is documented for 1934. The 1970 revivals are the traps: the Grove Press New York 1970 printing is the first American edition, and the Calder & Boyars London 1970 signed limited edition — 100 copies in quarter white calf over brown cloth boards, gilt-lettered, all edges gilt, signed and numbered by Beckett, in a slipcase — is a desirable book in its own right but is "first thus" only, not the 1934 first. Any copy in cloth other than tan with blue spine lettering should be checked as a later edition or a rebinding.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *More Pricks Than Kicks* by Samuel Beckett a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/more-pricks-than-kicks
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.