Samuel Beckett
Some of my favourite books on the author of Waiting for Godot.
damned to fame by James Knowlson
I think it’s fair to say that Knowlson’s authorised biography changed the way we see Samuel Beckett. Knowlson rooted Beckett’s work in his life and times, drawing on extensive interviews with Beckett’s friends and family as well as Beckett himself. Not only does it present an eminently readable and companionable account of Beckett’s life, in sympathetic but never hagiographic terms, it also ushered in a new era of historicist approaches to Beckett’s work.
Beckett writing Beckett: the author in the autograph by h. porter abbot
This book examines what Beckett’s work might have in common with what Abbot calls ‘autography’ or ‘self-writing’. Unlike autobiography - which aims to tell a history - the autographer creates a self, an identity, there on the page.
Beckett: a guide for the perplexed by Jonathan Boulter
This book is an excellent introduction to Beckett that also happens to contain some insightful readings of his work that can’t be found elsewhere.
Samuel Beckett’s Library by dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon
In 2006, Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon were granted access to Beckett’s apartment in Paris, which remains much as he left it after his death in 1989: lined with books. Samuel Beckett’s Library is the result of their exhaustive scrutiny of these volumes. It combines new information from the books themselves — including inscriptions from donors, marginalia, and other traces of reading such as dog-ears at the corner of pages — with information about Beckett’s reading gleaned from other sources. A fascinating and hugely useful book that sheds light on the books that made Beckett the writer and the man he was.
