'Years ago, during another hie as a dealer in rare hooks and manuscripts, I bought a copy of a Beckett play at auction. It was the ugliest book that has ever passed through my hands: a paperback, seventeenth edition, covers torn, pages crumpled and scribbled over. Its busted spine was brutally reinforced with silver duct tape. And yet this book was special. It was the prompt copy of the San Quentin Players' performance of Samuel Beckett's Endgame, which took place in the old gallows room of the infamous jail.' (Introduction)