This volume of the BDMP analyses the genesis of En attendant Godot. Samuel Beckett wrote his most famous play between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949, as a relaxation from the ‘awful prose’ of the trilogy he was writing at the time, and it soon became a worldwide success after its Paris premiere at the Théâtre de Babylone in January 1953. Having little to no experience in the theatre, Beckett significantly revised the text in rehearsal and in the English translation that followed in ...

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 analyses the genesis of Beckett’s novel Malone meurt / Malone Dies. Written in French in 1947-1948, and translated into English by the author in 1954-1956, it is the second part of the so-called ‘Trilogy’, preceded by Molloy and followed by L’Innommable / The Unnamable.

Because Malone’s account approximates a diary, this book starts from H. Porter Abbott’s notion of ‘diary fiction’ to examine the surviving manuscripts, typescripts, and pre-book publication extracts...

Samuel Beckett’s short play Play / Comédie and his only film Film were written around the same time (1962-1963). They both have self-referential titles that invite meditation on the genres they represent. Although medium-specific opportunities and challenges underlie their very different geneses, they have influenced each other in terms of both form and content. In more ways than one, Film continues where Play left off. Whereas in Play the genesis shows a steady increase in speech tempo to...

The latest BDMP volume discusses Samuel Beckett’s late prose text Company/Compagnie. Company was first composed in English between the years 1977 and 1979, with Beckett breaking a 20-year-long pattern of composing primarily in French to craft this meticulously structured 59-paragraph masterpiece of his late prose. Its French companion, Compagnie, was translated in only two weeks, in August 1979, yet the French came into print in early 1980, some months before the English ‘original’. Bot...

This volume of the BDMP analyses the genesis of Beckett’s novel Molloy. Written in French in 1947, and translated into English by Beckett and the South African author Patrick Bowles in 1953-1955, Molloy is the first novel of the so-called ‘Trilogy’, followed by Malone meurt / Malone Dies and L’Innommable / The Unnamable.

Through an examination of the surviving manuscripts, typescripts, and pre-book-publication extracts, this study is an attempt to understand Beckett’s work as both a...

This volume of the BDMP analyses the genesis of Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape, written in 1958, and translated into French in the same year. The play is characterized by the stark opposition light/darkness, relating to the dualism of mind and body, which makes it a suitable case to study Beckett’s developing views on cognition. The notes, manuscripts and typescripts are therefore examined from a cognitive perspective. The study combines genetic criticism and cognitive narratology, st...

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...

This volume of the BDMP charts the genesis of three iconic Beckett plays: Not I (1973), That Time (1976) and Footfalls (1976), all translated into French by their author. Including analyses of abandoned archival precursors – the ‘Kilcool’ drafts (1963) and the ‘Petit Odéon’ Fragments (1967–1968) – the book covers a crucial period in Beckett’s playwriting career, during which his long-held ambition to stage a mouth babbling in the dark became a catalyst for some of his most in...