# Is "Watt" by Samuel Beckett a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Watt by Samuel Beckett (Olympia Press, Collection Merlin, 1953) is identified by: First edition, The Olympia Press, Collection Merlin, Paris, 1953 (Federman & Fletcher 32); 254, [2] pp., including the Addenda. The census claim is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, The Olympia Press, Collection Merlin, Paris, 1953 (Federman & Fletcher 32)
- 254, [2] pp., including the Addenda
- Issued in printed paper wrappers, not cloth
- The reliable identification is the limitation leaf plus the colophon, which reads "Achevé d'imprimer 31 Août 1953 sur les presses de l'imprimerie Richard, 24, rue Stephenson, Paris." The limitation comprises numbered ordinary copies in wrappers together with 25 copies on fine paper, lettered A to Y and signed by Beckett
- The ordinary count is not settled across sources: dealer and auction descriptions give variously 1,100 numbered copies (for 1,125 in all) and 1,000 ordinary copies; numbered copies in the printed price are recorded at auction, which does not discriminate between the
- Wrapper colour is likewise unreliable as a single point — dealers describe magenta or purple wrappers printed in white with an asterisk border to the upper cover, and also beige wrappers with the publisher's bird device — so read the limitation leaf and colophon rather than the wrapper
- Publisher imprint reads Olympia Press, Collection Merlin

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Samuel Beckett |
| Publisher | Olympia Press, Collection Merlin |
| Year | 1953 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, The Olympia Press, Collection Merlin, Paris, 1953 (Federman & Fletcher 32) |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, The Olympia Press, Collection Merlin, Paris, 1953 (Federman & Fletcher 32); 254, [2] pp., including the Addenda. Issued in printed paper wrappers, not cloth. The reliable identification is the limitation leaf plus the colophon, which reads "Achevé d'imprimer 31 Août 1953 sur les presses de l'imprimerie Richard, 24, rue Stephenson, Paris." The limitation comprises numbered ordinary copies in wrappers together with 25 copies on fine paper, lettered A to Y and signed by Beckett. The ordinary count is not settled across sources: dealer and auction descriptions give variously 1,100 numbered copies (for 1,125 in all) and 1,000 ordinary copies; numbered copies in the printed price are recorded at auction, which does not discriminate between the. Wrapper colour is likewise unreliable as a single point — dealers describe magenta or purple wrappers printed in white with an asterisk border to the upper cover, and also beige wrappers with the publisher's bird device — so read the limitation leaf and colophon rather than the wrapper.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is confirmed. Watt was composed in English between roughly 1941 and 1945 while Beckett was in hiding in Vichy France, but was first published in Paris by Olympia Press in the Collection Merlin series in 1953 — the Paris limitation is the true first. Grove Press, New York, 1959 is the first American edition and the first trade edition of the book in any market; Calder, London, 1963 is the first English edition and the first sold into the UK trade. The novel was not translated into French until 1968, so there is no earlier original-language edition to displace the Paris English-language first. All three are collected, but only the 1953 Olympia is the first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is documented. The standing trap is that both later editions are commonly catalogued as firsts of a kind: Grove 1959 is the first trade edition and Calder 1963 is the first UK edition, and each is "first thus" only. Because Olympia wrappers are described in more than one colour, a wrapper that does not match a given dealer photograph is not by itself evidence of a later state — but any copy lacking the limitation leaf and the 31 August 1953 Imprimerie Richard colophon should be treated as a later printing or edition until proven otherwise.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Watt* by Samuel Beckett a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/watt
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.