Samuel Beckett
More Pricks than Kicks: Stories.
Grove Press, Inc., 1972. First printing of first Evergreen edition. 0394177894 191 pages.
Softcover volume, measuring approximately 5.5" x 8.25", displays very light shelfwear. Binding is sound. Pages 92 and 93 exhibit offsetting from laid-in paper. Pages are otherwise clean and without markings.
"This collection of ten short stories was first published in 1934, and originally formed part of an unfinished novel. They trace the career of Belacqua Shuah -- the first of Beckett's anti-heroes. Belacqua -- a student, philanderer, and failure -- is seen in various aspects of his troubled existence: studying Dante, going through an ill-fated courtship, witnessing grotesque incidents in the streets of Dublin, attending vapid parties, enduring his marriage, and meeting his accidental death. These early stories point to the qualities of precision, restraint, humor and the early stages of the underlying theme of bewilderment in the face of suffering."