University
of Chicago, Regenstein Library, Special Collections Research Center: Director Alice Schreyer, Betsy Bishop, Stephen Duffy, Robert Kovitz, Daniel Meyer, Suzy Taraba, Jonathon Walters.
Samuel Beckett
H.
Trench (d.
), MichaelJay Tucker.
Helen Vendler,John Vice, Srdjan Vujic.
Joachim
Heusinger von Waldegg, Mervyn Wall (d. ), David Wheatley, Thomas Whitehead, Clara Wisdom, Anne Leventhal Woolfson (d. ). Anne Yeats (d. ), Michael Yeats (d. ).
Contributions that pertain primarily to later volumes of the edition are accordingly acknowledged there.
LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES
Scholars, librarians, and archivists have developed valuable collections and have broadened our access to them with electronic catalogues, on line finding aids, databases, and textbases. In particular, we wish to thank James Knowlson for his vision in establishing the Beckett International Foundation at Reading University, a central archive of the papers of Samuel Beckett, and for fostering collaboration among Beckett scholars internationally; we also thank Mary Bryden, Ronan McDonald, Anna McMullan, Mark Nixon, John Pilling, and Julian Garforth for their valued collegial assistance.
The editors acknowledge with gratitude the knowledgeable col leagues in libraries, archives, museums, and other offices of record who have assisted them with queries.
Aargauer Kunsthaus: Corinne Sotzek. The Admiralty, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London: Gervaise Cowell (d. ). Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Munchen, Archiv und Sammlungen: Birgit Joos. American Library Association: Renee Prestegard. Archives of American Art: Susan Marcott, Judy Throm. Art Gallery of Ontario, E. P. Taylor Research Library and Archives: Kathleen McLean. Art Institute of Chicago Library: Susan Goldweski, Mary K. Woolever.
Bank of Ireland: Eamon MacThomas. Eduard-Bargheer-Haus, Hamburg: Dirk Justus, Peter Zilze. Barnard College Archives: Donald Glassman. Bayerische Staatsgemiildesamm! ungen, Munich: Helge Siefert. BBC Sound Archives: Gosta Johansson. BBC Written Archives: John Jordan, Jacqueline Kavanagh, Erin O'Neill, Julie Snelling, Tracy Weston. Bibliotheque
lxiii
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
Publique d'Information Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Bibliotheque Polonaise, Paris. Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, Paris. La Biennale Di Venezia Archive: Daniela Ducceschi. Boston College, John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections Library: Director Robert O'Neill, John Atteberry, Shelley Barber, Amy Braitsch, David E. Horn, Susan Rainville. Boston University, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center: Director Howard Gotlieb, Margaret Goostray, Christopher Noble, Sean Noel, Alexander Rankin, Kim Sulik. British Film Institute: Janet Moat, Wilf Stevenson. British Institute of Florence, Harold Acton Library: Alyson Price. British Library: Nicholas Barker, John Barr, Sally Brown, Christopher Fletcher, Andrew Levett, Alice Prochaska, Rupert Ridgewell; Newspapers, Colindale- Stewart Gilles; Oriental and India Office Collections, APAC - Dorian Leveque. The British Museum: Christopher Denvir. Galerie Jeanne-Bucher, Paris.
Cambridge University: University Library - Peter M. Meadows; Trinity College Library- Diana Chardin. Campbell College, Belfast: Keith Haines. Columbia University, Butler Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts: Director Jean Ashton, Director Bernard Crystal, Tara C. Craig, Jennifer Lee. Cornell University: John M. Olin Library, Department of Rare Books- David R. Block; Fiske Collections, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections - Patrick J. Stevens. Courtauld Institute of Art: Julia Blanks, Barbara Hilton-Smith, Sue Price, Ernst Vegelin.
Dartmouth College, Rauner Special Collections Library: Director Philip Cronenwett, Director Jay Satterfield, Joshua Berger, Stephanie Gibbs, Sarah I. Hartwell. Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin: Bernadette Chambers. DePau! University, Richardson Library: Joan M. Mitchanis. Deutsches Literatur Archiv, Schiller National Museum, Marbach: Ute Doster, Gunther Nickel, Jutta Reusch. The Dictionary of Irish Biography: James McGuire. Dresden Kunsthalle: Martin Roth. Dublin City Archives: Mary Clark Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane: Director Barbara Dawson, Patrick Casey, Liz Forster, Joanna Shepard. Dublin Writers Museum: Esther O'Hanlon.
Eastman School ofMusic, Sibley Music Library: Jim Farrington. Feis Ceoil, Dublin: Ita Beausang, Maeve Madden. Fondation Maeght, St. Paul de-Vence: Annette Pond. Ford Foundation: Alan Divack, Jonathan Green.
Association Les Amis de Jeanne et Otto Freundlich: Edda Maillet. Frick Museum Library: Lydia Dufore, Sue Massen.
Georgetown University Libraries: Nicholas B. Sheetz. Germanisches Nationalmuseum Numberg: lflrike Heinrichs-Schreiber. Global Village:
lxiv
Acknowledgments
John Reilly. The Goethe Institut (now Goethe-Zentrnm), Atlanta: Michael Nentwich, Gusti Stewart. Grolier Club Library: J. Fernando Peiia. The Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Florence: Phillip Rylands.
Hamburg University: Hans Wilhelm Eckardt, Eckart Krause. Hamburger Kunsthalle: Director Helmut R. Leppien (d. ), Ute Haug, Ulrich Luckhardt, Matthias Miihling, Uwe M. Schneed, Annemarie Stefes. Handel-Haus Library, Halle: Gotz Traxdorf. Harvard University: Countaway Library of Medicine - Julia Whelan; Fogg Art Museum - Lizzy Bamhorst, Sarah Kianovsky; Harvard Theatre Collection - Annette Fern, Fredric Woodbridge Wilson; Houghton Library - Michael Dumas, Elizabeth Falsey, Susan Halpert. Hiroshima Museum of Art: Y. Furutani. The Huntington Library: Sara S. Hodson. Leonard Hutton Galleries: Shary Grossman.
Illustrated London News: Richard Pitkin. Indiana University, The Lilly Library: Director Lisa Browar, Director Breon Mitchell, William Cagle, Saundra Taylor. Institut memoires de ! 'edition contemporaine (IMEC), Paris Caen: Director Olivier Corpet, Andre Derval, Albert Dichy, Nathalie Leger, Martine Ollion. Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt: Wilhelm Schluter. Inverclyde Libraries, James Watt Library, Greenock, Scotland: Betty Hendry, Rebecca McKellar. Irish Copyright Licensing Agency: Jorid Lindberg. Irish Jewish Genealogical Society and Family History Centre of the Irish Jewish Museum, Dublin: Stuart Rosenblatt.
Kent State University Libraries: Kathleen Martin, Stephanie Wachalec. Kingston University: Anne Rowe, Jane Ruddell. Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm: Anders Burius. Kunstmuseum Basel: Christian Selz.
Law Society ofIreland: Linda Dolan. Leeds University Library: Christopher Sheppard. Leibniz-Archiv, Hanover: Herbert Breger. Library of Congress, Department of Manuscripts, Washington, DC: Alice Love Birney,
Jeffrey M. Flannery. Linen Hall Library, Belfast: Gerry Healey. London Transport Museum Library: Helen Kent.
McMaster University, Mills Memorial Library: Jane Boyko, Eden Jenkins, Carl Spadoni, Charlotte A. Stewart-Murphy. Middle Temple Library, London: Stuart Adams. Munch Museum, Oslo: Gerd Woll. Museum Ludwig, Cologne: Ulrich Tillman. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford: David Elliot, Pamela Ferris.
National Archives, Washington, DC: John E. Taylor. National Archives of Ireland: David Craig, Catriona Crowe, Aideen Ireland, Tom Quinlan. National College ofArt and Design, Dublin: Alice Clarke. National
! xv
Acknowledgments
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC: Anne Halpern. National Gallery of Ireland: Leah Benson, Marie Burke, Niamh MacNally, Ann M. Stewart. National Gallery London, Libraries and Archive Department: Flavia Dietrich-England, Jacqueline Mccomish; New Media: Charlotte Sexton. National Irish Visual Arts Library: Ciara Healy, Donna Romano. National Library of Ireland: Director Patricia Donlon, Catherine Fahy, Patrick Hawes, Elizabeth M. Kirwan, Noel Kissane, Gerard Lyne. New Directions Publications: James Laughlin (d. ). New York Public Library: Berg Collection - Director Isaac Gewirtz, Mimi Bowling, Philip Milito, John D. Stinson; Billy Rose Theatre Collection - Director Robert Taylor, Mary Ellen Rogan, Nina Schneider; Theatre on Film and Tape Archive - Betty Corwin. New York University: Fales Library and Special Collections -Ann E. Butler, William]. Levay; Tisch School oftheArts -Elaine Pinto Simon. Northwestern University, McCormick Library of Special Collections: Director R. Russell Maylone, Scott Krafft, Susan R. Lewis, Sigrid P. Perry, Allen Streicker.
The Office ofPublic Works, National Monuments Division, Dublin: William S. Cumming. Ohio State University Libraries, Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts: Director Geoffrey D. Smith, Director Robert A. Tibbetts, Elva Griffith, Keith Lazuka. Operhaus Halle: Iris Kruse. Oxford University: Bodleian Library - Colin Harris, Judith Priestman; McGowin Library, Pembroke College. Princeton University Libraries: Mudd Library, Rare Books and Special Collections - Tad Bennicoff; Rare Books and Special Collections -Annalee Pauls, Jean F. Preston, Margaret M. Sherry Rich, Don C. Skemmer. Public Records Office ofNorthern Ireland: Ian Maxwell.
Radio Tele. fis Eireann (RTE), Dublin: Brian Lynch. Random House: Jean Rose, Jo Watt. Reading University Library, Location Register of English Literary Manuscripts - David Sutton; Special Collections - Director Michael Bott, Director James A. Edwards, Verity Andrews, Rosemarie Jahans, Frances Miller, Brian Ryder. Rotunda Hospital Library, Dublin:
Aoife O'Connor. Royal Academy of Music Library, Dublin: Philip Shields. Royal College of Physicians, Dublin: Robert Mills. Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland: Fiona Allen. Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin: Aoife Corbett, Ella Wilkinson. Royal Irish Academy: Linde Lunney. Royal National Theatre: Nicola Scadding. Royal Society of Literature, London: Kathleen Cann.
Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel: Robert Piencikowski. St. Bride Foundation Library: Rosalind Francis. St. Mary's Cathedral Galway: Noreen Ellecker.
lxvi
Acknowledgments
Sotheby's, London: Peter Beal, Sarah Cooper, Anthony W. Laywood, Sarah Markham, Tessa Milne, Bruce W. Swan. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale: Center for Dewey Studies - JoAnn Boydston; Morris Library, Special Collections Research Center - Randy Bixby, David V. Koch. Sprengel Museum, Hanover: Martina Behnert. Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, Halle: Wolfgang Biiche. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek: Bernd Evers. Staatsarchiv Aargau: Marcel Giger. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: Roland Klein, Jutta Weber. Stadtarchiv Halle: Roland Kuhne. Stanford University Libraries, Special Collections: Sara Timby. State University of New York at Buffalo, The Poetry Collection: Director Michael Basinski, Director Robert J. Bertholf, Heike Jones, Sue Michael, Sam Slote. Syracuse University Libraries, The George Arents Research Center: Carolyn Davis, Kathleen Manwaring.
Tate Modem, Archive: Jane Ruddell. Theatre de l'Odeon, Paris: Laure Benisti. Trinity College Dublin: Secretary to TCD, Michael Gleeson; Monica Alcock, Phyllis Graham, Jean O'Hara; Library - Charles Benson, John Goodwillie, Trevor Peare; Manuscripts Department - Director Bernard Meehan, Jane Maxwell, Linda Montgomery, Stuart 6 Sean6ir.
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick: Silke Gatenbrocker. Ulster Museum, Belfast: S. B. Kennedy. UNESCO Library, Paris: Jens Boel. Universal Edition: Elisabeth Knessl. University of California Berkeley, The Bancroft Library: Anthony Bliss, Bonnie Hardwick. University of California Davis, University Library, Department of Special Collections: Melissa Tyler. University of California Los Angeles, University Research Library: David Zeidberg. University of California San Diego, Mandeville Library: Linda Corey Claassen.
University of Chicago, Regenstein Library, Special Collections Research Center: Director Alice Schreyer, Betsy Bishop, Stephen Duffy, Robert Kovitz, Daniel Meyer, Suzy Taraba, Jonathon Walters. University of Delaware Libraries, Special Collections: Director Timothy D. Murray, L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Jesse Rossa. University College Dublin, Special Collections: Seamus Helferty, Norma Jessop. University of Glasgow, Special Collections: Claire McKendrick, Lesley M. Richmond. University of Manchester, John Rylands Research Institute: Stella Halkyard, Peter McNiven. University of Maryland (College Park), Archives: Beth Alvarez, Naomi Van Loo. University of New Hampshire, Library: Roland Goodbody. University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ackland Art Museum: Anita E. Heggli. University of Notre Dame Library, Department of Special Collections: Ben Panciera. University of
lxvii
Acknowledgments
Rochester Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts: Mary M. Huth. University of Sheffield Libraries, Special Collections: J. D. Hodgson. University of Sussex, Archives: Michael Roberts. The University of Texas: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center: Director Thomas Staley, Linda Ashton, Patrice Fox, Kathy Henderson, John Kirkpatrick, Carlton Lake (d. ), Sally Leach, Richard Oram, Maria X. Wells, Richard Workman. University of Toronto: Fisher Library - Edna Hajnal, Kathleen McMorrow; Pratt Library - Robert Brandeis, Gabbi Zaldin. University of Tulsa, The Mcfarlin Library, Special Collections: Director Sidney Huttner, Melissa Burkart, Lori N. Curtis. University of Western Ontario, Library: Meville Thompson.
Victoria and Albert Museum: The National Art Library - Nina Appleby, Alison Baber, Mark Evans, Francis Keen; The Theatre Collections at the Victoria and Albert (formerly The London Theatre Museum Archives) - Janet Birkett.
Wake Forest University, Reynolds Library: Sharon Snow. Washington University in St. Louis: Olin Library, Department of Special Collections: - Director Holly Hall (d. ), Director Anne Posega, Chatham Ewing, Sonya McDonald, Carole Prietto, Kevin Ray. Walker Art Center: Jill Veiter. Waterford County Museum: Martin Whelan.
Yale University: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - Vincent Giroud, Kathryn James, Nancy Kuhl, Natalia Sciarini, Patricia Willis, Tim Young; Gilmore Music Library - Suzanne Eggleston Lovejoy; Sterling Memorial Library, Manuscript and Archives Department - Christine Weidemann.
ZurichJamesJoyce Foundation: Director Fritz Senn, Ruth Frehner, Ursula Zeller.
MANUSCRIPT DEALERS
The following manuscript dealers have been helpful to the research for the edition, especially for informing us of offerings and forwarding our inquiries: Antic Hay Books; Charles Apfelbaum; Blue Mountain Books and Manuscripts; Alan Clodd (d. ); Seamus DeBurca; R. A. Gekoski; Thomas A. Goldwasser; Glenn Horowitz; George J. Houle; Index Books; Joseph the Provider; Kennys; Kotte-Autographs; Maggs Bros. Ltd. ; Bertram Rota Ltd. ; Sotheby's; Swann Gallery; Steven Temple Books; Ulysses Books; Waiting for Godot Books.
! xviii
PUBLISHERS
Barney Rosset was Samuel Beckett's American publisher at Grove Press. The editors are grateful for his important contributions to modern publishing and express appreciation for his efforts as the edition's original General Editor. The editors also thank all those at Grove Press who assisted with the research, with special mention ofJudith Schmidt Douw, Fred Jordan, Richard Seaver, Astrid Myers, and John Oakes, as well as Morgan Entrekin and Eric Price at Grove/Atlantic, for their professional support of the edition in its publishing transition.
The late Jerome Lindon, Director of Les Editions de Minuit and Samuel Beckett's French publisher, was a trusted adviser to Samuel Beckett who appointed him as his Literary Executor. The editors thank Irene Lindon, Director of Les Editions de Minuit, for her cooperation.
Cambridge University Press is committed to presenting The Letters of Samuel Beckett as an edition of the literary correspondence. The editors are grateful for the confidence and support of editors Andrew Brown and Linda Bree, the fine copyediting of Leigh Mueller, the care of proof-reader Anthony Hippisley, and the assistance of Caroline Murray, Alison Powell, Maartje Scheltens, and Kevin Taylor.
The editors express their gratitude for the assistance of many asso ciates who have read all or portions of this manuscript and who have made helpful suggestions. Any errors remain the editors' responsibility. The editors would be pleased to receive corrections or additions for possible inclusion, with appropriate acknowledgment, in subsequent editions.
Acknowledgments
lxix
PERMISSIONS
The editors and publishers acknowledge the following sources of copy righted documents and are grateful for the permission to reproduce these materials. While every effort has been made, it has not been possible to trace all copyright holders. If any omissions are brought to our notice, we will be pleased to include the appropriate acknowledg ments in subsequent editions.
Letters, manuscripts, and other documents written by Samuel Beckett are reproduced in this volume by courtesy of The Estate of Samuel Beckett.
Other letters and documents are reproduced with the kind permission of the following copyright holders: Klaus Albrecht for Gunter Albrecht; The Estate of Samuel Beckett for Frank Beckett; Lisa Jardine for Jacob Bronowski; The Random House Group Ltd. for letters written by Charles Prentice, Ian Parsons, and Harold Raymond on behalf of Chatto and Windus, and for the letter written by Charles Prentice to George Hill; Pollinger Limited and the proprietor of The Estate of Richard Church; John Coffey for The Estate of Brian Coffey; Gilbert Collins for Seward Collins and Dorothea Brande; Anthony R. A. Hobson on behalf of The Estate of Nancy Cunard; Penguin Books Ltd. for Hamish Hamilton; David HoneforJosephHone;BetsyJolasforEugeneJolasandMariaJolas;Margaret Farrington and Robert Ryan for Thomas McGreevy; The Estate of Samuel Putnam; Susan Bullowa and Jane Bullowa for George Reavey; A. D. Roberts for Michael Roberts, and for his permission to consult The Michael Roberts Archive before its deposit in the National Library of Scotland; Routledge (an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group) for T. M. Ragg; The Board of Trinity College Dublin for letters written by Thomas Brown Rudmose Brown, Walter Starkie, and Robert W. Tate on behalf of Samuel Beckett; Daniel Hay for Jean Thomas; Lady Staples and other representatives of The Estate of Arland Ussher; John H. Willis; Grainne Yeats on behalf of the copyright held by Michael Yeats for Jack B. Yeats.
lxx
Permission to publish has also been granted by the following owners ofletters, manuscripts, and other documents: Klaus Albrecht; Archives nationales, Paris; The Beckett International Foundation, Reading University; Trustees of The British Museum; The Poetry Collection, State University ofNew York at Buffalo; University ofCape Town; The Chatto and Windus Archives at Reading University; Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; Private Collection ofNuala Costello; Dartmouth College Library; Special Collections, University of Delaware Library; Association Les Amis de Jeanne et Otto Freundlich; Peter Gidal, London; David Hone; The Lilly Library, Indiana University; Department ofSpecial Collections, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University ofKansas; Private Collection ofDr. Katarina Kautsky, nee Sauerlandt; Northwestern University Library; Berg Collection ofEnglish and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; Princeton University Library; Archives Jacques Putman, Paris; Tatiana Goryaeva, Director, Rossijsky Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva (RGALI; Russian State Archive ofLiterature and Art); Morris Sinclair; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University ofTexas at Austin; The Board ofTrinity College Dublin; Zurich James Joyce Foundation, Hans E. Janke Bequest.
Permissions
lxxi
AN AUP BIF
BM
Burns Library
CtY
DeU ENS GN HK ICSo ICU
IEN IMEC
InU KF KU
MBA MOMA
lxxii
Archives nationales, Paris
The American University of Paris
Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading
British Museum, London
John J. Burns Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Boston College
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
University of Delaware Library, Newark Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris Germanisches Nationalmuseum Niirnberg Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Institut memoires de ! 'edition contemporaine, Paris-Caen
The Lilly Library, Indiana University
Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin
Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas
Musee des Beaux-Arts, Strasburg
Museum of Modern Art, New York
ABBREVIATIONS
LIBRARY, MUSEUM, AND INSTITUTIONAL ABBREVIATIONS
NBuU
NGB NGI NGL NhD
NjP
NLI
NNC, RBML
NPG
NYPL, Berg OkTIJ
RHA RTE TCD
TxU UoR
Albrecht Costello Gidal Sinclair
The Poetry Collection, State University of New York at Buffalo
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
National Gallery oflreland
National Gallery, London
Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College
Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections: Princeton University Library
National Library oflreland
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
National Portrait Gallery, London
New York Public Library, Berg Collection Department of Special Collections, Mcfarlin Library, University ofTulsa, Oklahoma
Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
Radio Telefis Eireann
Manuscript Room, Trinity College Dublin Library, when used with reference to manuscript identification; in other instances, a short form for Trinity College Dublin Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin Department ofSpecial Collections, University of Reading
List ofabbreviations
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Private collection of Klaus Albrecht
Private collection of Nuala Costello
Private collection ofPeter Gidal, Index Books Private collection ofMorris Sinclair
lxxiii
List of abbreviations
AvW GD
NRF
OED Pyle
SBT/A
b.
C.
d.
f.
fl. [illeg] ins
ACI ACS
AH
AL draft ALI
ALS AMS AN
lxxiv
ABBREVIATIONS FOR PUBLICATIONS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND TRANSLATORS
Adolf von Baden-Wurttemberg
Samuel Beckett's German Diaries, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading Library
Nouvelle Revue Frani;aise
Oxford English Dictionary, second electronic edition Refers to numbers assigned to paintings by Jack B. Yeats in Hilary Pyle. Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings (London: Andre Deutsch, 1992) 3 vols. , and Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: His Watercolours, Drawings and Pastels (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993)
Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui
EDITORIAL ABBREVIATIONS
born
circa
died
folio
flourished
illegible word, words inserted
m.
n. d. pseud. s/
?
< >
with date of marriage or to indicate married name
no date
pseudonym signed uncertain cancelation
ABBREVIATIONS IN BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
autograph card initialed autograph card signed another hand
autograph letter draft autograph letter initialed autograph letter signed autograph manuscript autograph note
pm
List ofabbreviations
ANI autograph note initialed ANS autograph note signed
APCI autograph postcard initialed APCS autograph postcard signed APS autograph postscript
env envelope
illeg illegible
imprinted imprinted with SB's name letterhead imprinted letterhead
postmark Pneu pneumatique
PS postscript
TLC typed letter copy
TLcc typed letter carbon copy TLdraft typed letter draft
TLI typed letter initialed TIS typed letter signed
TMS typed manuscript
TPCI typed postcard initialed TPCS typed postcard signed TPS typed postscript
lxxv
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I
"I find it more & more difficult to write, even letters to my friends. " So wrote Samuel Beckett in 1936 to Tom McGreevy, his chief correspond
1
Although Beckett claims in various ways that he hates letters, his sixty years of letters, taken as a whole, number more than fifteen thousand, and form one of the great literary correspondences of the twentieth century. No special pleading need be made as to the impor tance of even perfunctory letters from the hand of a writer as important as Beckett. Yet what will strike the reader is the fact that Beckett seldom writes perfunctory letters. Even when responding in haste, even when
ent for the period represented here, 1929 to 1940. The difficulty of writing letters is not the only one of which the young Beckett com plains, nor is it even the most acute. "I can't read, write, drink, think, feel, or move," he tells his friend Mary Manning Howe, while making his lonely tour round Germany's art treasures; "I seem impelled to address my friends when least in a condition to. "2 Immobility, impos sibility, illness, and impasse: across a human landscape populated by negation, doubt, refusal, and retreat, the letters collected here cut their way, making connections, opening possibilities, courting half-chances, chastising indifference. During this period, letters matter inordinately to Beckett. They are often his sole means of connection: to places where he is not, to people with whom he cannot converse directly, to others with whom he would not wish to converse directly. Letters are a chan nel to possible selves, selves ofwhich he is as yet only dimly aware, even to selves he would deny. Letters make possible a writing, a voice per haps, which his more public work does not yet dare to deploy.
1 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 28 November 19316].
2 SB to Mary Manning Howe, 14 November 1936.
lxxvii
Introduction to Volume I
penning a note on the back of a postcard, even when appealing from deep distress, Beckett is an extraordinarily painstaking and careful correspondent. In later years, especially after Waiting for Godot brings its author unexpected celebrity, the quantity of letters which his con scientiousness obliges him to write increases significantly - for him, alarmingly. And as the man becomes a public figure, however reluc tantly, their nature changes too, becoming in large part reactive: responses to requests for information from academics, for permissions from directors, for interpretations from translators, for advice from producers, for schedules from publishers. Here, in the early years, the letters are fewer, but they matter all the more, sent as they are into an epistolary space about which little can be assumed. The early letters convey information nearly always as a secondary function, their pri mary role being that of establishing a relation - by requesting, stirring, provoking, even outraging if necessary. The interest of the recipient is not always assured, often has to be stimulated and then maintained - and this, when what Beckett has to offer is usually far from conven tional or easily palatable.
Biography has an almost ineluctable tendency to make an individu al's greatness seem predestined. The individual's letters, if that individ ual is as lucid in his hesitations and ambivalences as Beckett, serve to restore the uncertainty informing the choices, the dilemmas and daily doubt which might at any point have compelled desertion of the cause or defection to some camp of lesser achievement. Beckett's letters reveal the compromises as well as the bold refusals, the longing for recognition as well as the revulsion at publicity, the numerous false paths almost taken as well as the inner conviction that only one path - the literary - is truly worth following.
Before being one of communication, the job of a letter is, then, to establish common terms between the writer and the recipient (whom the French language helpfully names the destinataire): to create some complicity or solidarity between aspirant and respondent; and to do so beyond the immediate social, geographical, professional, even intellec tual, environs which might otherwise have fostered less deferred or indirect verbal exchange. In doing so the letters permit - or permitted, since one ofthe things which adds to the value ofthis correspondence is that it is hard to imagine there ever arising a twenty-first-century equivalent - an intimacy which is both magnified and diminished,
lxxviii
Introduction to Volume I
both accelerated and delayed, with respect to what could be expected or achieved in conversation. For Beckett, however, the complicity which he is seeking in his letters is also one of which he is acutely wary; he is strongly suspicious of the demand implicit in solidarity; and he is almost cripplingly aware of the extreme constraints forever placed upon intimacy, not least when that intimacy is formed or sustained by the self-consciousness and control which letters permit, with their possibilities of revision and self-censorship. It may be partly in this sense that his "hatred" of letters is to be understood. For Beckett, merely to write, and then release, a letter during this period implies a sort of self-overcoming, a provisional acceptance of community when, as he puts it, "all groups are horrible";3 a climb down from the solitary self-sufficiency to which he aspires, whether he does so as self laceration or as self-aggrandizement (nobody loves me / the world does not deserve me). More simply, letters take their author out of himself. they take him elsewhere. They do this, when the desire to be freed from self, to be elsewhere, is itself being critically appraised by Beckett as one ofthe primary ruses for evasion oftruth and desertion of any putative literary vocation.
The restlessness which Beckett experiences during this period allows him to settle only briefly, and he is almost constantly on the move, between Dublin, London, and Paris, taking in Germany too on several occasions, opting finally for Paris in late 1937, just in time to move again in 1940, although by forces largely beyond his control. The danger in all such physical displacements is clear to him. Writing to Tom McGreevy from Germany in 1936, it is expressed as a question: "Was it then another journey from, like so many? "4 Then, as a confession, he writes to Mary Manning Howe, from the tail-end ofhis German sojourn: "It has turned out indeed to be a journey from, and not to, as I knew it was, before I began it. "5 Thejourneyfrom: when thosejourneys which are letters are equally haunted by the suspicion that they are serving as flight. They are haunted despite the fact that they are incontrovertibly to, letters destined to indeed - and not just to anyone. In their wonderful variety, Beckett's letters are written to appeal to the unique sensibilities and language-possibilities of their particular reader.
34
SB to Thomas McGreevy. 6 June 1939. SB to Thomas McGreevy, 9 October 1936. 5 SB to Mary Manning Howe, 13 December 1936.
lxxix
Introduction to Volume I
The letters collected in this volume attest to a loneliness deriving from a lack of much more than mere companionship. But even as they attest to this lack, they also attenuate it. Wherever Beckett is, he can also be elsewhere, even when on the road. His letters trace out an alternative reality for their writer, and help him to sustain himself, almost as in a spider's web of his own weaving, wherever he is living - and failing fully to live. Of course, for the letter's journey to be successful, for the else wheres to serve their function, these must be invested with affect, whether of desire, ambition, anger, or the longing for recognition. Every recipient must represent some alternative, if not of place or of feeling then of possibility, as in the numerous letters to agents and publishers, letters written reluctantly and with a sinking heart, but in the knowledge that without them his work will remain unknown and his options will only narrow further.
Feeling and possibility may yet meet, and when they do, as in the
great letters to McGreevy, a writing emerges which is quite as exciting
as anything Beckett is achieving with a view to publication. Even to
McGreevy, Beckett can be reticent: he writes to him in French when he
wishes to avoid the risk of being over-read; he scarcely discusses with
him the details of his sexual life, barely mentioning, for example, that
he has "seen quite a lot" of Peggy Guggenheim in 1938; and he tells him
on occasion that he prefers to discuss certain private matters with him
6
inperson. YettoMcGreevy,astoafewselectothers,heopenssome thing perhaps more important than any details of the life lived or the works completed. He opens a sense of the life not yet embarked upon, the life only dreamed of, when these will be immersed to saturation in the past and future that are art: music, painting, literature. Being already the Beckett which he perhaps will only later become in his published oeuvre, he must apologize, even when issuing insights of incalculable value, for a "miserable letter,''7 for "this futile and not even melancholy letter,"8 for "a very white kind of letter,"9 for "this Jeremiad. " 10 But being already, here in his letters, the Beckett who can allow a writing to emerge which is born of vulnerability and release, he
6 SB to Thomas McGreevy. 5 January 1938.
7 SB to Mary Manning Howe, 18 January 1937.
8 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 24 February 1931.
9 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 4 November [for 3 November 1932].
10 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 4 August 1932.
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Introduction to Volume I
can also admit that 'Tm not ashamed to stutter like this with you who are used to my wild way of failing to say whatl imagine I want to say and who understand that until the gag is chewed fit to swallow or spit out the mouth must stutter or rest. And it needs a more stoical mouth than mine to rest. " 11
The authorized biography of Samuel Beckett, by James Knowlson, bears the title, Damned to Fame (1996). Certainly, Beckett was amazed and often dismayed by the popularity his work gained during the last thirty years of his life. As we have suggested above, this popularity had a direct impact on Beckett the correspondent, dramatically increasing the num ber and considerably altering the nature ofthe letters he wrote. Yet what is striking about Beckett before the years of "fame," is how wary he was ofthe public dimension ofthe arts, even as he was attempting to gain this dimension for himselfand his work. Nowhere is this more patent than in his dealings with publishers. Here, his wariness turns often into a disdain or hostility which is all the more notable in that his principal interloc utors at publishing houses or journals tend to be intelligent, patient, learned, supportive, and gentlemanly: men such as his publisher Charles Prentice at Chatto and Windus, a figure almost unimaginable in the cut and thrust of today's trade publishing world. "Truck direct with publish ers," writes Beckett in 1936 when such "truck" is still largely a fantasy, "is one of the few avoidable degradations. " 12 For Beckett, merely attempting to be published is cursed as "creeping and crawling and sollicitation [sic],"13 tantamount to transporting "a load of manure or a ton of bricks"14 to "literary garbage buckets. "15 A six-week delay in response from a certain Rupert Grayson sparks a rare paranoid reaction in which the usual self-deprecation turns into self-inflation, as Beckett worries that: "I have an idea he may try and do the dirty. He has no background and I have nothing to show that he has any ofmy property. "16 In rage, the same day, he writes to George Reavey, one of whose roles it was to mediate his relations with the presses: "Grayson has lost it or cleaned
11 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 18 October 1932.
12 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 7 August 1936.
13 SB to Thomas McGreevy. 18 ! August 1932].
14 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 1 March 1930.
15 SB to Thomas McGreevy, Friday I? summer 1929].
16 SB to Thomas McGreevy. 8 October 1932.
booci
Introduction to Volume I
himself with it. Kick his balls off. "17 Reavey, who fills the role of agent while helping Beckett in many other ways, is the object of the greatest swings of mood and judgment during these years, as Beckett goes from soliciting him to reviling him to needing him, from shunning him to recommending him to his friends. "I neither trust him nor like him," he writes in 1936, "but know no other agent. "18 Things deteriorate when Reavey publishes a Beckett text without its author's permission, to the point where Beckett writes to Reavey a letter so scathing that this per haps explains why it no longer exists; though its content may be recon structed from a letter Beckett writes to McGreevy, in which Reavey is described as: "(1) A liar (2) A clumsy Sophist (3) An illiterate. "19 Within a month, however, Beckett writes, "I extended the little finger of reconci liation to G. R. ";20 and some short time after that he is content once more to be "dumping the work on Reavey. "21
The temptation is ever present, for Beckett, to abandon the effort to diffuse the work beyond the closest circle of friends. But this tempta tion is weak compared to the pressure coming from another source, which Beckett believes can be relieved only by its receiving public recognition. "I dread going home with nothing cut & dried to do," he writes to McGreevy from Germany in 1937: "Proofs & a publication would carry me over till I could get away again. "22 He writes of his mother, that she "supposes I am brimming over with material for books 1 . . . ] anything rather than desoeuvrement. "23 Publishers and their acceptance become the propitiatory flag which he hopes to wave at his exasperated family members, who are in a state of incomprehen sion as to the choices he is making and refusing to make in his life. That the flag is never large enough or appropriately marked, that the public recognition does not arrive in time or from the appropriate quarters, remains one of the major disappointments of Beckett's life.
When approval does come, from as valued a reader as McGreevy, Beckett's joy, if short-lived, is unequivocal. When he learns of his
17 SB to George Reavey, 8 October 1932.
18 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 7 August 1936.
19 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 27 June 1936.
20 SB to Thomas McGreevy. 26 July [1936).
21 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 7 August 1936.
22 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 16 February 1937.
23 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 20 February [1935). "Desoeuvrement" (having nothing
todo).
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Introduction to Volume I
friend's favorable judgment ofthe manuscript ofMurphy, he responds: "I need not tell you I was delighted with your letter. I was afraid you would not like it much at all.
Heusinger von Waldegg, Mervyn Wall (d. ), David Wheatley, Thomas Whitehead, Clara Wisdom, Anne Leventhal Woolfson (d. ). Anne Yeats (d. ), Michael Yeats (d. ).
Contributions that pertain primarily to later volumes of the edition are accordingly acknowledged there.
LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES
Scholars, librarians, and archivists have developed valuable collections and have broadened our access to them with electronic catalogues, on line finding aids, databases, and textbases. In particular, we wish to thank James Knowlson for his vision in establishing the Beckett International Foundation at Reading University, a central archive of the papers of Samuel Beckett, and for fostering collaboration among Beckett scholars internationally; we also thank Mary Bryden, Ronan McDonald, Anna McMullan, Mark Nixon, John Pilling, and Julian Garforth for their valued collegial assistance.
The editors acknowledge with gratitude the knowledgeable col leagues in libraries, archives, museums, and other offices of record who have assisted them with queries.
Aargauer Kunsthaus: Corinne Sotzek. The Admiralty, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London: Gervaise Cowell (d. ). Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Munchen, Archiv und Sammlungen: Birgit Joos. American Library Association: Renee Prestegard. Archives of American Art: Susan Marcott, Judy Throm. Art Gallery of Ontario, E. P. Taylor Research Library and Archives: Kathleen McLean. Art Institute of Chicago Library: Susan Goldweski, Mary K. Woolever.
Bank of Ireland: Eamon MacThomas. Eduard-Bargheer-Haus, Hamburg: Dirk Justus, Peter Zilze. Barnard College Archives: Donald Glassman. Bayerische Staatsgemiildesamm! ungen, Munich: Helge Siefert. BBC Sound Archives: Gosta Johansson. BBC Written Archives: John Jordan, Jacqueline Kavanagh, Erin O'Neill, Julie Snelling, Tracy Weston. Bibliotheque
lxiii
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
Publique d'Information Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Bibliotheque Polonaise, Paris. Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, Paris. La Biennale Di Venezia Archive: Daniela Ducceschi. Boston College, John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections Library: Director Robert O'Neill, John Atteberry, Shelley Barber, Amy Braitsch, David E. Horn, Susan Rainville. Boston University, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center: Director Howard Gotlieb, Margaret Goostray, Christopher Noble, Sean Noel, Alexander Rankin, Kim Sulik. British Film Institute: Janet Moat, Wilf Stevenson. British Institute of Florence, Harold Acton Library: Alyson Price. British Library: Nicholas Barker, John Barr, Sally Brown, Christopher Fletcher, Andrew Levett, Alice Prochaska, Rupert Ridgewell; Newspapers, Colindale- Stewart Gilles; Oriental and India Office Collections, APAC - Dorian Leveque. The British Museum: Christopher Denvir. Galerie Jeanne-Bucher, Paris.
Cambridge University: University Library - Peter M. Meadows; Trinity College Library- Diana Chardin. Campbell College, Belfast: Keith Haines. Columbia University, Butler Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts: Director Jean Ashton, Director Bernard Crystal, Tara C. Craig, Jennifer Lee. Cornell University: John M. Olin Library, Department of Rare Books- David R. Block; Fiske Collections, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections - Patrick J. Stevens. Courtauld Institute of Art: Julia Blanks, Barbara Hilton-Smith, Sue Price, Ernst Vegelin.
Dartmouth College, Rauner Special Collections Library: Director Philip Cronenwett, Director Jay Satterfield, Joshua Berger, Stephanie Gibbs, Sarah I. Hartwell. Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin: Bernadette Chambers. DePau! University, Richardson Library: Joan M. Mitchanis. Deutsches Literatur Archiv, Schiller National Museum, Marbach: Ute Doster, Gunther Nickel, Jutta Reusch. The Dictionary of Irish Biography: James McGuire. Dresden Kunsthalle: Martin Roth. Dublin City Archives: Mary Clark Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane: Director Barbara Dawson, Patrick Casey, Liz Forster, Joanna Shepard. Dublin Writers Museum: Esther O'Hanlon.
Eastman School ofMusic, Sibley Music Library: Jim Farrington. Feis Ceoil, Dublin: Ita Beausang, Maeve Madden. Fondation Maeght, St. Paul de-Vence: Annette Pond. Ford Foundation: Alan Divack, Jonathan Green.
Association Les Amis de Jeanne et Otto Freundlich: Edda Maillet. Frick Museum Library: Lydia Dufore, Sue Massen.
Georgetown University Libraries: Nicholas B. Sheetz. Germanisches Nationalmuseum Numberg: lflrike Heinrichs-Schreiber. Global Village:
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Acknowledgments
John Reilly. The Goethe Institut (now Goethe-Zentrnm), Atlanta: Michael Nentwich, Gusti Stewart. Grolier Club Library: J. Fernando Peiia. The Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Florence: Phillip Rylands.
Hamburg University: Hans Wilhelm Eckardt, Eckart Krause. Hamburger Kunsthalle: Director Helmut R. Leppien (d. ), Ute Haug, Ulrich Luckhardt, Matthias Miihling, Uwe M. Schneed, Annemarie Stefes. Handel-Haus Library, Halle: Gotz Traxdorf. Harvard University: Countaway Library of Medicine - Julia Whelan; Fogg Art Museum - Lizzy Bamhorst, Sarah Kianovsky; Harvard Theatre Collection - Annette Fern, Fredric Woodbridge Wilson; Houghton Library - Michael Dumas, Elizabeth Falsey, Susan Halpert. Hiroshima Museum of Art: Y. Furutani. The Huntington Library: Sara S. Hodson. Leonard Hutton Galleries: Shary Grossman.
Illustrated London News: Richard Pitkin. Indiana University, The Lilly Library: Director Lisa Browar, Director Breon Mitchell, William Cagle, Saundra Taylor. Institut memoires de ! 'edition contemporaine (IMEC), Paris Caen: Director Olivier Corpet, Andre Derval, Albert Dichy, Nathalie Leger, Martine Ollion. Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt: Wilhelm Schluter. Inverclyde Libraries, James Watt Library, Greenock, Scotland: Betty Hendry, Rebecca McKellar. Irish Copyright Licensing Agency: Jorid Lindberg. Irish Jewish Genealogical Society and Family History Centre of the Irish Jewish Museum, Dublin: Stuart Rosenblatt.
Kent State University Libraries: Kathleen Martin, Stephanie Wachalec. Kingston University: Anne Rowe, Jane Ruddell. Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm: Anders Burius. Kunstmuseum Basel: Christian Selz.
Law Society ofIreland: Linda Dolan. Leeds University Library: Christopher Sheppard. Leibniz-Archiv, Hanover: Herbert Breger. Library of Congress, Department of Manuscripts, Washington, DC: Alice Love Birney,
Jeffrey M. Flannery. Linen Hall Library, Belfast: Gerry Healey. London Transport Museum Library: Helen Kent.
McMaster University, Mills Memorial Library: Jane Boyko, Eden Jenkins, Carl Spadoni, Charlotte A. Stewart-Murphy. Middle Temple Library, London: Stuart Adams. Munch Museum, Oslo: Gerd Woll. Museum Ludwig, Cologne: Ulrich Tillman. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford: David Elliot, Pamela Ferris.
National Archives, Washington, DC: John E. Taylor. National Archives of Ireland: David Craig, Catriona Crowe, Aideen Ireland, Tom Quinlan. National College ofArt and Design, Dublin: Alice Clarke. National
! xv
Acknowledgments
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC: Anne Halpern. National Gallery of Ireland: Leah Benson, Marie Burke, Niamh MacNally, Ann M. Stewart. National Gallery London, Libraries and Archive Department: Flavia Dietrich-England, Jacqueline Mccomish; New Media: Charlotte Sexton. National Irish Visual Arts Library: Ciara Healy, Donna Romano. National Library of Ireland: Director Patricia Donlon, Catherine Fahy, Patrick Hawes, Elizabeth M. Kirwan, Noel Kissane, Gerard Lyne. New Directions Publications: James Laughlin (d. ). New York Public Library: Berg Collection - Director Isaac Gewirtz, Mimi Bowling, Philip Milito, John D. Stinson; Billy Rose Theatre Collection - Director Robert Taylor, Mary Ellen Rogan, Nina Schneider; Theatre on Film and Tape Archive - Betty Corwin. New York University: Fales Library and Special Collections -Ann E. Butler, William]. Levay; Tisch School oftheArts -Elaine Pinto Simon. Northwestern University, McCormick Library of Special Collections: Director R. Russell Maylone, Scott Krafft, Susan R. Lewis, Sigrid P. Perry, Allen Streicker.
The Office ofPublic Works, National Monuments Division, Dublin: William S. Cumming. Ohio State University Libraries, Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts: Director Geoffrey D. Smith, Director Robert A. Tibbetts, Elva Griffith, Keith Lazuka. Operhaus Halle: Iris Kruse. Oxford University: Bodleian Library - Colin Harris, Judith Priestman; McGowin Library, Pembroke College. Princeton University Libraries: Mudd Library, Rare Books and Special Collections - Tad Bennicoff; Rare Books and Special Collections -Annalee Pauls, Jean F. Preston, Margaret M. Sherry Rich, Don C. Skemmer. Public Records Office ofNorthern Ireland: Ian Maxwell.
Radio Tele. fis Eireann (RTE), Dublin: Brian Lynch. Random House: Jean Rose, Jo Watt. Reading University Library, Location Register of English Literary Manuscripts - David Sutton; Special Collections - Director Michael Bott, Director James A. Edwards, Verity Andrews, Rosemarie Jahans, Frances Miller, Brian Ryder. Rotunda Hospital Library, Dublin:
Aoife O'Connor. Royal Academy of Music Library, Dublin: Philip Shields. Royal College of Physicians, Dublin: Robert Mills. Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland: Fiona Allen. Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin: Aoife Corbett, Ella Wilkinson. Royal Irish Academy: Linde Lunney. Royal National Theatre: Nicola Scadding. Royal Society of Literature, London: Kathleen Cann.
Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel: Robert Piencikowski. St. Bride Foundation Library: Rosalind Francis. St. Mary's Cathedral Galway: Noreen Ellecker.
lxvi
Acknowledgments
Sotheby's, London: Peter Beal, Sarah Cooper, Anthony W. Laywood, Sarah Markham, Tessa Milne, Bruce W. Swan. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale: Center for Dewey Studies - JoAnn Boydston; Morris Library, Special Collections Research Center - Randy Bixby, David V. Koch. Sprengel Museum, Hanover: Martina Behnert. Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, Halle: Wolfgang Biiche. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek: Bernd Evers. Staatsarchiv Aargau: Marcel Giger. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: Roland Klein, Jutta Weber. Stadtarchiv Halle: Roland Kuhne. Stanford University Libraries, Special Collections: Sara Timby. State University of New York at Buffalo, The Poetry Collection: Director Michael Basinski, Director Robert J. Bertholf, Heike Jones, Sue Michael, Sam Slote. Syracuse University Libraries, The George Arents Research Center: Carolyn Davis, Kathleen Manwaring.
Tate Modem, Archive: Jane Ruddell. Theatre de l'Odeon, Paris: Laure Benisti. Trinity College Dublin: Secretary to TCD, Michael Gleeson; Monica Alcock, Phyllis Graham, Jean O'Hara; Library - Charles Benson, John Goodwillie, Trevor Peare; Manuscripts Department - Director Bernard Meehan, Jane Maxwell, Linda Montgomery, Stuart 6 Sean6ir.
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick: Silke Gatenbrocker. Ulster Museum, Belfast: S. B. Kennedy. UNESCO Library, Paris: Jens Boel. Universal Edition: Elisabeth Knessl. University of California Berkeley, The Bancroft Library: Anthony Bliss, Bonnie Hardwick. University of California Davis, University Library, Department of Special Collections: Melissa Tyler. University of California Los Angeles, University Research Library: David Zeidberg. University of California San Diego, Mandeville Library: Linda Corey Claassen.
University of Chicago, Regenstein Library, Special Collections Research Center: Director Alice Schreyer, Betsy Bishop, Stephen Duffy, Robert Kovitz, Daniel Meyer, Suzy Taraba, Jonathon Walters. University of Delaware Libraries, Special Collections: Director Timothy D. Murray, L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Jesse Rossa. University College Dublin, Special Collections: Seamus Helferty, Norma Jessop. University of Glasgow, Special Collections: Claire McKendrick, Lesley M. Richmond. University of Manchester, John Rylands Research Institute: Stella Halkyard, Peter McNiven. University of Maryland (College Park), Archives: Beth Alvarez, Naomi Van Loo. University of New Hampshire, Library: Roland Goodbody. University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ackland Art Museum: Anita E. Heggli. University of Notre Dame Library, Department of Special Collections: Ben Panciera. University of
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Acknowledgments
Rochester Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts: Mary M. Huth. University of Sheffield Libraries, Special Collections: J. D. Hodgson. University of Sussex, Archives: Michael Roberts. The University of Texas: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center: Director Thomas Staley, Linda Ashton, Patrice Fox, Kathy Henderson, John Kirkpatrick, Carlton Lake (d. ), Sally Leach, Richard Oram, Maria X. Wells, Richard Workman. University of Toronto: Fisher Library - Edna Hajnal, Kathleen McMorrow; Pratt Library - Robert Brandeis, Gabbi Zaldin. University of Tulsa, The Mcfarlin Library, Special Collections: Director Sidney Huttner, Melissa Burkart, Lori N. Curtis. University of Western Ontario, Library: Meville Thompson.
Victoria and Albert Museum: The National Art Library - Nina Appleby, Alison Baber, Mark Evans, Francis Keen; The Theatre Collections at the Victoria and Albert (formerly The London Theatre Museum Archives) - Janet Birkett.
Wake Forest University, Reynolds Library: Sharon Snow. Washington University in St. Louis: Olin Library, Department of Special Collections: - Director Holly Hall (d. ), Director Anne Posega, Chatham Ewing, Sonya McDonald, Carole Prietto, Kevin Ray. Walker Art Center: Jill Veiter. Waterford County Museum: Martin Whelan.
Yale University: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - Vincent Giroud, Kathryn James, Nancy Kuhl, Natalia Sciarini, Patricia Willis, Tim Young; Gilmore Music Library - Suzanne Eggleston Lovejoy; Sterling Memorial Library, Manuscript and Archives Department - Christine Weidemann.
ZurichJamesJoyce Foundation: Director Fritz Senn, Ruth Frehner, Ursula Zeller.
MANUSCRIPT DEALERS
The following manuscript dealers have been helpful to the research for the edition, especially for informing us of offerings and forwarding our inquiries: Antic Hay Books; Charles Apfelbaum; Blue Mountain Books and Manuscripts; Alan Clodd (d. ); Seamus DeBurca; R. A. Gekoski; Thomas A. Goldwasser; Glenn Horowitz; George J. Houle; Index Books; Joseph the Provider; Kennys; Kotte-Autographs; Maggs Bros. Ltd. ; Bertram Rota Ltd. ; Sotheby's; Swann Gallery; Steven Temple Books; Ulysses Books; Waiting for Godot Books.
! xviii
PUBLISHERS
Barney Rosset was Samuel Beckett's American publisher at Grove Press. The editors are grateful for his important contributions to modern publishing and express appreciation for his efforts as the edition's original General Editor. The editors also thank all those at Grove Press who assisted with the research, with special mention ofJudith Schmidt Douw, Fred Jordan, Richard Seaver, Astrid Myers, and John Oakes, as well as Morgan Entrekin and Eric Price at Grove/Atlantic, for their professional support of the edition in its publishing transition.
The late Jerome Lindon, Director of Les Editions de Minuit and Samuel Beckett's French publisher, was a trusted adviser to Samuel Beckett who appointed him as his Literary Executor. The editors thank Irene Lindon, Director of Les Editions de Minuit, for her cooperation.
Cambridge University Press is committed to presenting The Letters of Samuel Beckett as an edition of the literary correspondence. The editors are grateful for the confidence and support of editors Andrew Brown and Linda Bree, the fine copyediting of Leigh Mueller, the care of proof-reader Anthony Hippisley, and the assistance of Caroline Murray, Alison Powell, Maartje Scheltens, and Kevin Taylor.
The editors express their gratitude for the assistance of many asso ciates who have read all or portions of this manuscript and who have made helpful suggestions. Any errors remain the editors' responsibility. The editors would be pleased to receive corrections or additions for possible inclusion, with appropriate acknowledgment, in subsequent editions.
Acknowledgments
lxix
PERMISSIONS
The editors and publishers acknowledge the following sources of copy righted documents and are grateful for the permission to reproduce these materials. While every effort has been made, it has not been possible to trace all copyright holders. If any omissions are brought to our notice, we will be pleased to include the appropriate acknowledg ments in subsequent editions.
Letters, manuscripts, and other documents written by Samuel Beckett are reproduced in this volume by courtesy of The Estate of Samuel Beckett.
Other letters and documents are reproduced with the kind permission of the following copyright holders: Klaus Albrecht for Gunter Albrecht; The Estate of Samuel Beckett for Frank Beckett; Lisa Jardine for Jacob Bronowski; The Random House Group Ltd. for letters written by Charles Prentice, Ian Parsons, and Harold Raymond on behalf of Chatto and Windus, and for the letter written by Charles Prentice to George Hill; Pollinger Limited and the proprietor of The Estate of Richard Church; John Coffey for The Estate of Brian Coffey; Gilbert Collins for Seward Collins and Dorothea Brande; Anthony R. A. Hobson on behalf of The Estate of Nancy Cunard; Penguin Books Ltd. for Hamish Hamilton; David HoneforJosephHone;BetsyJolasforEugeneJolasandMariaJolas;Margaret Farrington and Robert Ryan for Thomas McGreevy; The Estate of Samuel Putnam; Susan Bullowa and Jane Bullowa for George Reavey; A. D. Roberts for Michael Roberts, and for his permission to consult The Michael Roberts Archive before its deposit in the National Library of Scotland; Routledge (an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group) for T. M. Ragg; The Board of Trinity College Dublin for letters written by Thomas Brown Rudmose Brown, Walter Starkie, and Robert W. Tate on behalf of Samuel Beckett; Daniel Hay for Jean Thomas; Lady Staples and other representatives of The Estate of Arland Ussher; John H. Willis; Grainne Yeats on behalf of the copyright held by Michael Yeats for Jack B. Yeats.
lxx
Permission to publish has also been granted by the following owners ofletters, manuscripts, and other documents: Klaus Albrecht; Archives nationales, Paris; The Beckett International Foundation, Reading University; Trustees of The British Museum; The Poetry Collection, State University ofNew York at Buffalo; University ofCape Town; The Chatto and Windus Archives at Reading University; Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; Private Collection ofNuala Costello; Dartmouth College Library; Special Collections, University of Delaware Library; Association Les Amis de Jeanne et Otto Freundlich; Peter Gidal, London; David Hone; The Lilly Library, Indiana University; Department ofSpecial Collections, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University ofKansas; Private Collection ofDr. Katarina Kautsky, nee Sauerlandt; Northwestern University Library; Berg Collection ofEnglish and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; Princeton University Library; Archives Jacques Putman, Paris; Tatiana Goryaeva, Director, Rossijsky Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva (RGALI; Russian State Archive ofLiterature and Art); Morris Sinclair; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University ofTexas at Austin; The Board ofTrinity College Dublin; Zurich James Joyce Foundation, Hans E. Janke Bequest.
Permissions
lxxi
AN AUP BIF
BM
Burns Library
CtY
DeU ENS GN HK ICSo ICU
IEN IMEC
InU KF KU
MBA MOMA
lxxii
Archives nationales, Paris
The American University of Paris
Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading
British Museum, London
John J. Burns Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Boston College
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
University of Delaware Library, Newark Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris Germanisches Nationalmuseum Niirnberg Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Institut memoires de ! 'edition contemporaine, Paris-Caen
The Lilly Library, Indiana University
Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin
Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas
Musee des Beaux-Arts, Strasburg
Museum of Modern Art, New York
ABBREVIATIONS
LIBRARY, MUSEUM, AND INSTITUTIONAL ABBREVIATIONS
NBuU
NGB NGI NGL NhD
NjP
NLI
NNC, RBML
NPG
NYPL, Berg OkTIJ
RHA RTE TCD
TxU UoR
Albrecht Costello Gidal Sinclair
The Poetry Collection, State University of New York at Buffalo
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
National Gallery oflreland
National Gallery, London
Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College
Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections: Princeton University Library
National Library oflreland
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
National Portrait Gallery, London
New York Public Library, Berg Collection Department of Special Collections, Mcfarlin Library, University ofTulsa, Oklahoma
Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
Radio Telefis Eireann
Manuscript Room, Trinity College Dublin Library, when used with reference to manuscript identification; in other instances, a short form for Trinity College Dublin Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin Department ofSpecial Collections, University of Reading
List ofabbreviations
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Private collection of Klaus Albrecht
Private collection of Nuala Costello
Private collection ofPeter Gidal, Index Books Private collection ofMorris Sinclair
lxxiii
List of abbreviations
AvW GD
NRF
OED Pyle
SBT/A
b.
C.
d.
f.
fl. [illeg] ins
ACI ACS
AH
AL draft ALI
ALS AMS AN
lxxiv
ABBREVIATIONS FOR PUBLICATIONS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND TRANSLATORS
Adolf von Baden-Wurttemberg
Samuel Beckett's German Diaries, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading Library
Nouvelle Revue Frani;aise
Oxford English Dictionary, second electronic edition Refers to numbers assigned to paintings by Jack B. Yeats in Hilary Pyle. Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings (London: Andre Deutsch, 1992) 3 vols. , and Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: His Watercolours, Drawings and Pastels (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993)
Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui
EDITORIAL ABBREVIATIONS
born
circa
died
folio
flourished
illegible word, words inserted
m.
n. d. pseud. s/
?
< >
with date of marriage or to indicate married name
no date
pseudonym signed uncertain cancelation
ABBREVIATIONS IN BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
autograph card initialed autograph card signed another hand
autograph letter draft autograph letter initialed autograph letter signed autograph manuscript autograph note
pm
List ofabbreviations
ANI autograph note initialed ANS autograph note signed
APCI autograph postcard initialed APCS autograph postcard signed APS autograph postscript
env envelope
illeg illegible
imprinted imprinted with SB's name letterhead imprinted letterhead
postmark Pneu pneumatique
PS postscript
TLC typed letter copy
TLcc typed letter carbon copy TLdraft typed letter draft
TLI typed letter initialed TIS typed letter signed
TMS typed manuscript
TPCI typed postcard initialed TPCS typed postcard signed TPS typed postscript
lxxv
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I
"I find it more & more difficult to write, even letters to my friends. " So wrote Samuel Beckett in 1936 to Tom McGreevy, his chief correspond
1
Although Beckett claims in various ways that he hates letters, his sixty years of letters, taken as a whole, number more than fifteen thousand, and form one of the great literary correspondences of the twentieth century. No special pleading need be made as to the impor tance of even perfunctory letters from the hand of a writer as important as Beckett. Yet what will strike the reader is the fact that Beckett seldom writes perfunctory letters. Even when responding in haste, even when
ent for the period represented here, 1929 to 1940. The difficulty of writing letters is not the only one of which the young Beckett com plains, nor is it even the most acute. "I can't read, write, drink, think, feel, or move," he tells his friend Mary Manning Howe, while making his lonely tour round Germany's art treasures; "I seem impelled to address my friends when least in a condition to. "2 Immobility, impos sibility, illness, and impasse: across a human landscape populated by negation, doubt, refusal, and retreat, the letters collected here cut their way, making connections, opening possibilities, courting half-chances, chastising indifference. During this period, letters matter inordinately to Beckett. They are often his sole means of connection: to places where he is not, to people with whom he cannot converse directly, to others with whom he would not wish to converse directly. Letters are a chan nel to possible selves, selves ofwhich he is as yet only dimly aware, even to selves he would deny. Letters make possible a writing, a voice per haps, which his more public work does not yet dare to deploy.
1 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 28 November 19316].
2 SB to Mary Manning Howe, 14 November 1936.
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Introduction to Volume I
penning a note on the back of a postcard, even when appealing from deep distress, Beckett is an extraordinarily painstaking and careful correspondent. In later years, especially after Waiting for Godot brings its author unexpected celebrity, the quantity of letters which his con scientiousness obliges him to write increases significantly - for him, alarmingly. And as the man becomes a public figure, however reluc tantly, their nature changes too, becoming in large part reactive: responses to requests for information from academics, for permissions from directors, for interpretations from translators, for advice from producers, for schedules from publishers. Here, in the early years, the letters are fewer, but they matter all the more, sent as they are into an epistolary space about which little can be assumed. The early letters convey information nearly always as a secondary function, their pri mary role being that of establishing a relation - by requesting, stirring, provoking, even outraging if necessary. The interest of the recipient is not always assured, often has to be stimulated and then maintained - and this, when what Beckett has to offer is usually far from conven tional or easily palatable.
Biography has an almost ineluctable tendency to make an individu al's greatness seem predestined. The individual's letters, if that individ ual is as lucid in his hesitations and ambivalences as Beckett, serve to restore the uncertainty informing the choices, the dilemmas and daily doubt which might at any point have compelled desertion of the cause or defection to some camp of lesser achievement. Beckett's letters reveal the compromises as well as the bold refusals, the longing for recognition as well as the revulsion at publicity, the numerous false paths almost taken as well as the inner conviction that only one path - the literary - is truly worth following.
Before being one of communication, the job of a letter is, then, to establish common terms between the writer and the recipient (whom the French language helpfully names the destinataire): to create some complicity or solidarity between aspirant and respondent; and to do so beyond the immediate social, geographical, professional, even intellec tual, environs which might otherwise have fostered less deferred or indirect verbal exchange. In doing so the letters permit - or permitted, since one ofthe things which adds to the value ofthis correspondence is that it is hard to imagine there ever arising a twenty-first-century equivalent - an intimacy which is both magnified and diminished,
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Introduction to Volume I
both accelerated and delayed, with respect to what could be expected or achieved in conversation. For Beckett, however, the complicity which he is seeking in his letters is also one of which he is acutely wary; he is strongly suspicious of the demand implicit in solidarity; and he is almost cripplingly aware of the extreme constraints forever placed upon intimacy, not least when that intimacy is formed or sustained by the self-consciousness and control which letters permit, with their possibilities of revision and self-censorship. It may be partly in this sense that his "hatred" of letters is to be understood. For Beckett, merely to write, and then release, a letter during this period implies a sort of self-overcoming, a provisional acceptance of community when, as he puts it, "all groups are horrible";3 a climb down from the solitary self-sufficiency to which he aspires, whether he does so as self laceration or as self-aggrandizement (nobody loves me / the world does not deserve me). More simply, letters take their author out of himself. they take him elsewhere. They do this, when the desire to be freed from self, to be elsewhere, is itself being critically appraised by Beckett as one ofthe primary ruses for evasion oftruth and desertion of any putative literary vocation.
The restlessness which Beckett experiences during this period allows him to settle only briefly, and he is almost constantly on the move, between Dublin, London, and Paris, taking in Germany too on several occasions, opting finally for Paris in late 1937, just in time to move again in 1940, although by forces largely beyond his control. The danger in all such physical displacements is clear to him. Writing to Tom McGreevy from Germany in 1936, it is expressed as a question: "Was it then another journey from, like so many? "4 Then, as a confession, he writes to Mary Manning Howe, from the tail-end ofhis German sojourn: "It has turned out indeed to be a journey from, and not to, as I knew it was, before I began it. "5 Thejourneyfrom: when thosejourneys which are letters are equally haunted by the suspicion that they are serving as flight. They are haunted despite the fact that they are incontrovertibly to, letters destined to indeed - and not just to anyone. In their wonderful variety, Beckett's letters are written to appeal to the unique sensibilities and language-possibilities of their particular reader.
34
SB to Thomas McGreevy. 6 June 1939. SB to Thomas McGreevy, 9 October 1936. 5 SB to Mary Manning Howe, 13 December 1936.
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The letters collected in this volume attest to a loneliness deriving from a lack of much more than mere companionship. But even as they attest to this lack, they also attenuate it. Wherever Beckett is, he can also be elsewhere, even when on the road. His letters trace out an alternative reality for their writer, and help him to sustain himself, almost as in a spider's web of his own weaving, wherever he is living - and failing fully to live. Of course, for the letter's journey to be successful, for the else wheres to serve their function, these must be invested with affect, whether of desire, ambition, anger, or the longing for recognition. Every recipient must represent some alternative, if not of place or of feeling then of possibility, as in the numerous letters to agents and publishers, letters written reluctantly and with a sinking heart, but in the knowledge that without them his work will remain unknown and his options will only narrow further.
Feeling and possibility may yet meet, and when they do, as in the
great letters to McGreevy, a writing emerges which is quite as exciting
as anything Beckett is achieving with a view to publication. Even to
McGreevy, Beckett can be reticent: he writes to him in French when he
wishes to avoid the risk of being over-read; he scarcely discusses with
him the details of his sexual life, barely mentioning, for example, that
he has "seen quite a lot" of Peggy Guggenheim in 1938; and he tells him
on occasion that he prefers to discuss certain private matters with him
6
inperson. YettoMcGreevy,astoafewselectothers,heopenssome thing perhaps more important than any details of the life lived or the works completed. He opens a sense of the life not yet embarked upon, the life only dreamed of, when these will be immersed to saturation in the past and future that are art: music, painting, literature. Being already the Beckett which he perhaps will only later become in his published oeuvre, he must apologize, even when issuing insights of incalculable value, for a "miserable letter,''7 for "this futile and not even melancholy letter,"8 for "a very white kind of letter,"9 for "this Jeremiad. " 10 But being already, here in his letters, the Beckett who can allow a writing to emerge which is born of vulnerability and release, he
6 SB to Thomas McGreevy. 5 January 1938.
7 SB to Mary Manning Howe, 18 January 1937.
8 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 24 February 1931.
9 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 4 November [for 3 November 1932].
10 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 4 August 1932.
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can also admit that 'Tm not ashamed to stutter like this with you who are used to my wild way of failing to say whatl imagine I want to say and who understand that until the gag is chewed fit to swallow or spit out the mouth must stutter or rest. And it needs a more stoical mouth than mine to rest. " 11
The authorized biography of Samuel Beckett, by James Knowlson, bears the title, Damned to Fame (1996). Certainly, Beckett was amazed and often dismayed by the popularity his work gained during the last thirty years of his life. As we have suggested above, this popularity had a direct impact on Beckett the correspondent, dramatically increasing the num ber and considerably altering the nature ofthe letters he wrote. Yet what is striking about Beckett before the years of "fame," is how wary he was ofthe public dimension ofthe arts, even as he was attempting to gain this dimension for himselfand his work. Nowhere is this more patent than in his dealings with publishers. Here, his wariness turns often into a disdain or hostility which is all the more notable in that his principal interloc utors at publishing houses or journals tend to be intelligent, patient, learned, supportive, and gentlemanly: men such as his publisher Charles Prentice at Chatto and Windus, a figure almost unimaginable in the cut and thrust of today's trade publishing world. "Truck direct with publish ers," writes Beckett in 1936 when such "truck" is still largely a fantasy, "is one of the few avoidable degradations. " 12 For Beckett, merely attempting to be published is cursed as "creeping and crawling and sollicitation [sic],"13 tantamount to transporting "a load of manure or a ton of bricks"14 to "literary garbage buckets. "15 A six-week delay in response from a certain Rupert Grayson sparks a rare paranoid reaction in which the usual self-deprecation turns into self-inflation, as Beckett worries that: "I have an idea he may try and do the dirty. He has no background and I have nothing to show that he has any ofmy property. "16 In rage, the same day, he writes to George Reavey, one of whose roles it was to mediate his relations with the presses: "Grayson has lost it or cleaned
11 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 18 October 1932.
12 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 7 August 1936.
13 SB to Thomas McGreevy. 18 ! August 1932].
14 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 1 March 1930.
15 SB to Thomas McGreevy, Friday I? summer 1929].
16 SB to Thomas McGreevy. 8 October 1932.
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himself with it. Kick his balls off. "17 Reavey, who fills the role of agent while helping Beckett in many other ways, is the object of the greatest swings of mood and judgment during these years, as Beckett goes from soliciting him to reviling him to needing him, from shunning him to recommending him to his friends. "I neither trust him nor like him," he writes in 1936, "but know no other agent. "18 Things deteriorate when Reavey publishes a Beckett text without its author's permission, to the point where Beckett writes to Reavey a letter so scathing that this per haps explains why it no longer exists; though its content may be recon structed from a letter Beckett writes to McGreevy, in which Reavey is described as: "(1) A liar (2) A clumsy Sophist (3) An illiterate. "19 Within a month, however, Beckett writes, "I extended the little finger of reconci liation to G. R. ";20 and some short time after that he is content once more to be "dumping the work on Reavey. "21
The temptation is ever present, for Beckett, to abandon the effort to diffuse the work beyond the closest circle of friends. But this tempta tion is weak compared to the pressure coming from another source, which Beckett believes can be relieved only by its receiving public recognition. "I dread going home with nothing cut & dried to do," he writes to McGreevy from Germany in 1937: "Proofs & a publication would carry me over till I could get away again. "22 He writes of his mother, that she "supposes I am brimming over with material for books 1 . . . ] anything rather than desoeuvrement. "23 Publishers and their acceptance become the propitiatory flag which he hopes to wave at his exasperated family members, who are in a state of incomprehen sion as to the choices he is making and refusing to make in his life. That the flag is never large enough or appropriately marked, that the public recognition does not arrive in time or from the appropriate quarters, remains one of the major disappointments of Beckett's life.
When approval does come, from as valued a reader as McGreevy, Beckett's joy, if short-lived, is unequivocal. When he learns of his
17 SB to George Reavey, 8 October 1932.
18 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 7 August 1936.
19 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 27 June 1936.
20 SB to Thomas McGreevy. 26 July [1936).
21 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 7 August 1936.
22 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 16 February 1937.
23 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 20 February [1935). "Desoeuvrement" (having nothing
todo).
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friend's favorable judgment ofthe manuscript ofMurphy, he responds: "I need not tell you I was delighted with your letter. I was afraid you would not like it much at all.
