About this item
This fourth and final volume, which completes the Cambridge edition of The Letters of Samuel Beckett, covers the final twenty-four years of what was, as Beckett saw it, a surprisingly long life. During these years he produced many of his finest and most concentrated works for theatre, plays that included Not I, Ohio Impromptu, and Catastrophe; for television he wrote Eh Joe and Ghost Trio; while in prose, he produced the late 'trilogy' that comprises Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, and Worstward Ho. In 1969, Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the letters from this period show him struggling to cope with the pressures created by his ever-growing international fame. The letters reveal how, later, he turned his mind to his legacy, as seen through his interactions with biographers and archivists.
About the Author
Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1927. His made his poetry debut in 1930 with Whoroscope and followed it with essays and two novels before World War Two. He wrote one of his most famous plays, Waiting for Godot, in 1949 but it wasn't published in English until 1954. Waiting for Godot brought Beckett international fame and firmly established him as a leading figure in the Theatre of the Absurd. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. Beckett continued to write prolifically for radio, TV and the theatre until his death in 1989.
Photo by Roger Pic [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
