The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 3, 1957-1965

by Samuel Beckett, George Craig (Editor), Martha Dow Fehsenfeld (Editor), Dan Gunn (Editor), Lois More Overbeck (Editor)

Overview

This third volume of The Letters of Samuel Beckett focuses on the years when Beckett is striving to find a balance between the demands put upon him by his growing international fame, and his need for the peace and silence from which new writing might emerge. This is the period in which Beckett launches into work for radio, film and, later, into television. It also marks his return to writing fiction, with his first major piece for a decade, Comment c'est (How It Is). Where hitherto he has been reticent about the writing process, now he devotes letter after letter to describing and explaining his work in progress. For the first time Beckett has a woman as his major correspondent: a relationship shown in his intense and abundant letters to Barbara Bray. The volume also provides critical introductions, chronologies, explanatory notes and profiles of Beckett's main correspondents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521867955
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/18/2014
Series:	The Letters of Samuel Beckett
Pages:	816
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

George Craig, Editor and French Translator, is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Sussex.

Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Founding Editor, was authorized by Samuel Beckett to edit his correspondence in 1985.

Dan Gunn, Editor, is Professor of Comparative Literature and English at The American University of Paris.

Lois More Overbeck, General Editor, is a Research Associate of the Laney Graduate School, Emory University.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; General introduction; French translator's preface George Craig; Editorial procedures; Acknowledgements; Permissions; List of abbreviations; Introduction to Volume III Dan Gunn; Letters, 1957–1965; Appendix: profiles; Bibliography of works cited; Index of recipients; Index of first names; Summary listing of Samuel Beckett's works, Volume III; General index.

Editorial Reviews

The editing of this third volume of The Letters of Samuel Beckett is no less exemplary than that with which we've come to be familiar from the first and second…Again and again, this volume of letters allows Beckett to come off as being genuinely assured of his vision of, say, how a part should be interpreted… while being genuinely uncertain about his own role.

The New York Times Book Review - Paul Muldoon

08/11/2014
In the third volume of this landmark project, the editors offer an expertly assembled selection of Beckett’s letters written between 1957 and 1965, ably supported by copious footnotes and explanatory text. Many are presented first in the original French and then in English, into which they have been translated for the first time. The sheer volume of letters collected here testifies to Beckett’s deep engagement with the theatrical world and his need to thrive “on the intensity and multiplicity of his connections.” The Beckett who is revealed is the opposite of a recluse—he is always meeting friends, attending arts festivals or theater productions, or traveling back and forth between his homes in Paris and Ussy-sur-Marne. He is most relaxed with longtime mistress Barbara Bray, to whom he wrote revealing, intimate, and touching letters. Yet it is his work that dominates his time and correspondence. Endgame premiered in 1957, Krapp’s Last Tape the following year, and all the while productions of Waiting for Godot and other plays were spanning the globe. At one point Beckett writes of a recent memoir, “I dislike all this personal stuff,” but readers will find much to like when allowed into Beckett’s personal life. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"A model edition … an invaluable asset not only to Beckettian scholarship but also to readers with a keen interest in the author's work …"
Erica Mihalycsa, Babes-Bolyai University

"In the third volume of this landmark project, the editors offer an expertly assembled selection of Beckett's letters written between 1957 and 1965."
Publishers Weekly

"Superb … as with earlier volumes the editorial work on display here is of a very high order."
Standpoint

"Readers get an extraordinary insight into the mind of arguably this country's best playwright."
Irish Tatler

"The third volume is as impeccably and as lovingly edited as its predecessors … As always, George Craig’s translation of the letters in French is clear, elegant and always inventive - particularly felicitous, for instance, is his rendering of the French slang term mézigue as 'My Nibs'. Beckett would have loved it."
Irish Times

"The volume like its earlier companions is a work of meticulous scholarship and has to be counted a major achievement by Cambridge University Press."
Irish Independent

"Among all the tawdry showbiz memoirs now crowding the shops, here is greatness, words to take to heart, the book of the year."
Evening Standard

"A beautifully wrought publication and thanks to its four editors it has an artistry all of its own."
The Independent

"… magnificent and accessible, this collection will be cherished by scholars, but lovers of theater will appreciate it, too."
Library Journal

"The first two volumes have been critically acclaimed, and this one is a breathtaking feat, providing new insight into Beckett's personal life and working process."
The Chronicle of Higher Education

"Wonderfully unbuttoned and, in places, intimate and endearing."
The Guardian

"The most significant literary correspondence of its time."
The Spectator

"The best letter anthology this year and by quite a margin … This is not only thanks to Beckett's mesmerising writing and wonderful turn of phrase but also because the book has been meticulously and perfectly edited."
Shaun Usher, The Big Issue

"Beckett’s Letters are a joy to read."
The London Magazine

"George Craig's essay on translating Beckett and his translation of the letters Beckett wrote in French are a wonder of tact and ingenuity. In addition, Dan Gunn provides a thoughtful overview. … I am sure that what is to come will be as good as what we have here, for it is now clear that Beckett is never going to dry up and, indeed, that he is that rare sort of writer who grows younger as he ages."
The Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher

★ 10/01/2014
These letters—edited by Craig (Honorary Research Fellow, Univ. of Sussex), Martha Dow Fehsenfeld (coauthor, Beckett in the Theatre), Dan Gunn (comparative literature and English, American Univ. of Paris), and Lois More Overbeck (research associate, Emory Univ.)—written in the bloom of Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett's (1906–89) success as an author, are as much of a treasure as the man who wrote them. By 1957, Beckett's play Waiting for Godot was an international success and his Fin de Partie (Endgame) was published later that year. The letters reveal that with success Beckett's life changed. Want it or not, he was a celebrity involved in the publication and production of his works. Two strains appear in the missives contained in this volume. One is chit-chat; the writer connecting with friends, praising colleagues, and encouraging young authors. He comes across as vivacious, chatty at times, and generous to a fault. The other strain is his obsession with his writing, which never ceased. Beckett was never satisfied, not even with success. VERDICT Magnificent and accessible, this collection will be cherished by scholars, but lovers of theater will appreciate it, too.—David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Library Journal