A rare signed first edition of Foirades/Fizzles by Samuel Beckett and the artist Jasper Johns is to be sold by the Manhattan Rare Book Company for $30,000.

The book was a collaboration between the author and the artist - with both signing only 250 of the 300 first editions published.

According to the press release, the 'brooding' essays were originally written in French by Beckett, who later translated them to English.

Johns chose to include both language texts along with his 33 mixed-media etchings, aquatints and colour lithographs - all classic imagery related to numbers and body parts.

The first edition, from 1976, features original prints by Johns, and is printed on handmade wove Auvergne Richard De Bas paper watermarked with Beckett's initials and Johns' signature.

It comes in a publisher's beige linen solander box.

The book, considered to be one of the greatest artists' books of the second half of the twentieth century, is sure to attract fervent interest from fans and collectors alike.

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