MURPHY [Publisher's Copy]

New York: Grove Press, [1957]. First American Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine without dustwrapper, as issued. Cloth-backed boards. Beckett's first published novel, first published in England in 1938. Copy #22 of only 100 numbered copies SIGNED by the author and specially bound in gilt-stamped brown cloth and tan boards. Grove Press publisher Barney Rosset's copy with the following in his hand on the front endpaper: "publisher's copy/Barney Rosset - GROVE PRESS." Rosset introduced American readers to numerous significant writers, including Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, and Stoppard. He led a successful legal battle to publish the uncensored version of D. H. Lawrence's novel LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER, and later was the American publisher of Henry Miller's controversial novel TROPIC OF CANCER. The right to publish and distribute Miller's novel in the United States was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1964, in a landmark ruling for free speech and the First Amendment.