Watt

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.