The Letters of Samuel Beckett

Last fall, Cambridge University Press published The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume 2: 1941–1956. Edited by George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn, and Lois More Overbeck, the volume is the second in a four-part series offering a comprehensive range of Samuel Beckett’s letters.

In compiling this edition, the editors consulted the Samuel Beckett papers at the Ransom Center, from which more than 15 percent of the letters in this volume were drawn.

“The Letters of Samuel Beckett,” a project of the Emory Laney Graduate School, will result in the publication of two additional volumes that feature Beckett materials from around the world.

The Modern Language Association of America recently announced that the first book in the series, The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume 1: 1929–1940, will receive the eleventh Morton N. Cohen Award for a Distinguished Edition of Letters.

The Ransom Center acquired its first substantial group of Beckett books and manuscripts in 1958 and continues to add to its holdings.

Handwritten manuscripts and typescripts make up the bulk of the collection, supplemented by Beckett’s correspondence and a wide range of his writing, including poems, stories, and plays spanning most of his career.

Drafts of both the French En attendant Godot and the English Waiting for Godot are present, as are versions of All That Fall, Comment c’est, Krapp’s Last Tape, and Watt. A handwritten manuscript of Whoroscope, Beckett’s first published poem, is also in the collection.

The Ransom Center’s web exhibition “Fathoms from Anywhere” traces Beckett’s (1906–1989) career, drawing materials from the Ransom Center’s collection.