This volume of the bdmp analyses the genesis of one of Beckett's most important works, the novel L'Innommable / The Unnamable, written in French in 1949-50 and translated into English by Beckett in 1956-8. Through an examination of the surviving manuscripts and typescripts, as well as the French and English pre-book-publication extracts, this study locates the novel within Beckett's developing aesthetic, especially his interest in Fritz Mauthner's 'critique of language' (Sprachkritik). It aim...

This volume of the BDMP analyses the genesis of Fin de partie / Endgame. Described by Samuel Beckett as more ‘inhuman’ than Waiting for Godot and as possessing an ability to ‘claw’, it was his favourite among all his plays and yet also a work the genesis of which was particularly arduous. It took Beckett many years to complete the French version, and about the translation process he complained in 1957: ‘What a losing battle it is always’. This book explores that genesis through an...