The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 3, 1957-1965
Shop Other Formats
21,000+ Reviews
Bookshop.org has the highest-rated customer service of any bookstore in the world
Description
This third volume of The Letters of Samuel Beckett focuses on the years when Beckett is striving to find a balance between the demands put upon him by his growing international fame, and his need for the peace and silence from which new writing might emerge. This is the period in which Beckett launches into work for radio, film and, later, into television. It also marks his return to writing fiction, with his first major piece for a decade, Comment c'est (How It Is). Where hitherto he has been reticent about the writing process, now he devotes letter after letter to describing and explaining his work in progress. For the first time Beckett has a woman as his major correspondent: a relationship shown in his intense and abundant letters to Barbara Bray. The volume also provides critical introductions, chronologies, explanatory notes and profiles of Beckett's main correspondents.
Product Details
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Publish Date | October 16, 2014 |
| Pages | 816 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Hardback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780521867955 |
| Dimensions | 8.6 X 5.7 X 1.9 inches | 2.9 pounds |
About the Author
George Craig, Editor and French Translator, is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Sussex.
Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Founding Editor, was authorized by Samuel Beckett to edit his correspondence in 1985.
Dan Gunn, Editor, is Professor of Comparative Literature and English at The American University of Paris.
Lois More Overbeck, General Editor, is a Research Associate of the Laney Graduate School, Emory University.
Reviews
"... magnificent and accessible, this collection will be cherished by scholars, but lovers of theater will appreciate it, too."
Library Journal
"A beautifully wrought publication and thanks to its four editors it has an artistry all of its own."
The Independent
"A model edition ... an invaluable asset not only to Beckettian scholarship but also to readers with a keen interest in the author's work ..."
Erica Mihalycsa, Babes-Bolyai University
"Among all the tawdry showbiz memoirs now crowding the shops, here is greatness, words to take to heart, the book of the year."
Evening Standard
"Beckett's Letters are a joy to read."
The London Magazine
"George Craig's essay on translating Beckett and his translation of the letters Beckett wrote in French are a wonder of tact and ingenuity. In addition, Dan Gunn provides a thoughtful overview. ... I am sure that what is to come will be as good as what we have here, for it is now clear that Beckett is never going to dry up and, indeed, that he is that rare sort of writer who grows younger as he ages."
The Times Literary Supplement
"In the third volume of this landmark project, the editors offer an expertly assembled selection of Beckett's letters written between 1957 and 1965."
Publishers Weekly
"Readers get an extraordinary insight into the mind of arguably this country's best playwright."
Irish Tatler
"Superb ... as with earlier volumes the editorial work on display here is of a very high order."
Standpoint
"The best letter anthology this year and by quite a margin ... This is not only thanks to Beckett's mesmerising writing and wonderful turn of phrase but also because the book has been meticulously and perfectly edited."
Shaun Usher, The Big Issue
"The first two volumes have been critically acclaimed, and this one is a breathtaking feat, providing new insight into Beckett's personal life and working process."
The Chronicle of Higher Education
"The most significant literary correspondence of its time."
The Spectator
"The third volume is as impeccably and as lovingly edited as its predecessors ... As always, George Craig's translation of the letters in French is clear, elegant and always inventive - particularly felicitous, for instance, is his rendering of the French slang term mézigue as 'My Nibs'. Beckett would have loved it."
Irish Times
"The volume like its earlier companions is a work of meticulous scholarship and has to be counted a major achievement by Cambridge University Press."
Irish Independent
"Wonderfully unbuttoned and, in places, intimate and endearing."
The Guardian
Library Journal
"A beautifully wrought publication and thanks to its four editors it has an artistry all of its own."
The Independent
"A model edition ... an invaluable asset not only to Beckettian scholarship but also to readers with a keen interest in the author's work ..."
Erica Mihalycsa, Babes-Bolyai University
"Among all the tawdry showbiz memoirs now crowding the shops, here is greatness, words to take to heart, the book of the year."
Evening Standard
"Beckett's Letters are a joy to read."
The London Magazine
"George Craig's essay on translating Beckett and his translation of the letters Beckett wrote in French are a wonder of tact and ingenuity. In addition, Dan Gunn provides a thoughtful overview. ... I am sure that what is to come will be as good as what we have here, for it is now clear that Beckett is never going to dry up and, indeed, that he is that rare sort of writer who grows younger as he ages."
The Times Literary Supplement
"In the third volume of this landmark project, the editors offer an expertly assembled selection of Beckett's letters written between 1957 and 1965."
Publishers Weekly
"Readers get an extraordinary insight into the mind of arguably this country's best playwright."
Irish Tatler
"Superb ... as with earlier volumes the editorial work on display here is of a very high order."
Standpoint
"The best letter anthology this year and by quite a margin ... This is not only thanks to Beckett's mesmerising writing and wonderful turn of phrase but also because the book has been meticulously and perfectly edited."
Shaun Usher, The Big Issue
"The first two volumes have been critically acclaimed, and this one is a breathtaking feat, providing new insight into Beckett's personal life and working process."
The Chronicle of Higher Education
"The most significant literary correspondence of its time."
The Spectator
"The third volume is as impeccably and as lovingly edited as its predecessors ... As always, George Craig's translation of the letters in French is clear, elegant and always inventive - particularly felicitous, for instance, is his rendering of the French slang term mézigue as 'My Nibs'. Beckett would have loved it."
Irish Times
"The volume like its earlier companions is a work of meticulous scholarship and has to be counted a major achievement by Cambridge University Press."
Irish Independent
"Wonderfully unbuttoned and, in places, intimate and endearing."
The Guardian
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
