A Beckett Chronology

"And I am perhaps confusing several different occasions, and different times, deep down, and deep down is my dwelling, oh not deepest down, somewhere between the mud and the scum."  —Molloy (11)

1902: Mary Roe "May" Beckett (1871-1950) gives birth to her first son, Frank Edward Beckett, in Cooldrinagh on July 26, some two months after the parents moved into their new Foxrock home.

1906: May gives birth to her second son, Samuel Barclay Beckett (SB), also at home in Cooldrinagh on April 13, Good Friday.  The official birth certificate, however, lists 13 May as the date of birth, an error that has confused more than one of SB's early biographers.

1911-1915: SB attends a small, private kindergarten school run by two German sisters, Misses Ida and Pauline Elsner in Leopardstown.  Shortly thereafter the Beckett brothers leave the Misses Elsners' Academy to attend a larger school called Earlsfort House in Dublin, not far from the Harcourt Street station.

1916: Between April 24 and 29, the Easter Rising occurs in Dublin, an abortive (though profoundly momentous) attempt by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army to establish the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic.  The Becketts are safely sequestered from any violence in the affluent, Protestant village of Foxrock, but the "Troubles" continue as the Anglo-Irish war (1919-21) is followed by the Irish Civil war (1921-2).  SB's father takes his sons, Frank and Samuel, to a hilltop where they can see the fires in neighboring Dublin.  The image will stay with SB his entire life.

1920: Begins attending Portora Royal School, as did Oscar Wilde, in Enniskillen in the Northern county of Fermanagh.  For the 1921 school year SB discovered that he now attended school in a foreign country, Northern Ireland, U. K.

1923: Enters Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) as an undergraduate to study for an Arts degree.  Soon meets Thomas Rudmose-Brown, Professor of Modern Languages, who is to have a lasting impact on SB, perhaps most notably developing SB's interest in contemporary French literature and by encouraging him to write creatively.  SB would satirize his mentor as the Polar Bear in his first extended piece of fiction, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, a novel he struggled with through 1931-2, offered it to a series of publishers unsuccessfully, and then suppressed until after his death.  It was finally published in 1995.  A second important lecturer was Bianca Esposito, who (along with Walter Starkie) teaches him Italian and inaugurates his lifelong passion for Dante.  He would take private lessons from Signorina Esposito as well.  Those lessons at 21 Ely Place were then caricatured in the short story "Dante and the Lobster."  SB retained lifelong affection for Dante, however, evident by the fact that his student copy of The Devine Comedy would be at his bedside as he died in December of 1989.  Soon after he arrives at TCD, SB falls in love, for the first time, with Ethna MacCarthy, a charming, experienced, mature young woman who inspires two of his poems, "Alba" and "Yoke of Liberty," appears as a fleeting reference in "Sanies I," and more fully as the Alba in Dream of Fair to Middling Women.  The affection seemed to have been one-sided, however, and she would eventually marry SB's best friend A. J. "Con" Leventhal.  Her death in 1959 increased the already close bond between SB and Leventhal.

1925-1926: Sees W.B. Yeats's versions of Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus at the Abbey Theatre.  Toward the end of 1926, insomnia, night sweats and feelings of panic begin to afflict him.  In August of 1926, he visits France for the first time, taking a bicycle tour of the châteaux of the Loire Valley, to improve his spoken French.   On his return to Ireland he moves into rooms at 39 New Square in TCD.  At the end of 1926, Alfred Péron arrives form Paris as the new exchange lecteur.  Péron and SB's friendship lasts throughout the `30s and is to have major significance during WWII.

1927: With an American friend, Charles Clark, he tours Florence and Venice to improve his spoken Italian.  While there he tours museums and galleries, studying artistic masterpieces that will resurface in much of his subsequent writing.  At Trinity he completes his examinations, places first in his class, and receives his BA in Modern Languages (French and Italian).

1928: Wins a research prize (either £50 or £100) from TCD for his essay on "Unanimisme."  Through the good offices of his mentor Rudmose-Brown he obtains a teaching post in French and English at Campbell College, Belfast, a residential public school while he waits to take up his exchange lectureship as Lectueur d'Anglais at École Normale Supérieure in Paris.  Teaches for two terms in Belfast and dislikes the experience, finding it difficult to teach elementary material and getting up in time for his first lesson.  Returns to Dublin in the summer and meets his cousin, Peggy Sinclair, who will appear as the Smeraldina-Rima in Dream of Fair to Middling Women.  Her fictional treatment is, to say the least, unsympathetic.  In October, despite heated parental opposition, he visits Peggy in Kassel, Germany.  Leaves Kassel at the end of October and arrives in Paris on the last day of the month to take up his teaching post as Lectueur d'Anglais at École Normale Supérieure.  Meets his predecessor Thomas MacGreevy who becomes a lifelong confidant and who introduces him to influential writers and publishers living in Paris, James Joyce, Eugene Jolas, and Sylvia Beach among them.  Although he is not enthusiastic about a scholarly career, his immersion in the Parisian literary circle has profound artistic import.  He returns to Kassel for the Christmas holiday, and much of that stay is parodied in Dream of Fair to Middling Women.

1929: Meets Suzanne Deschevaux-Demesnil at a private tennis club; he will eventually marry her in 1961.  SB publishes his first critical essay, "Dante . . . Bruno. Vico . . Joyce" in transition magazine, together with his first piece of fiction, "Assumption."  Makes many trips to Kassel throughout 1929 to visit Peggy (and her family).

1930: Publishes his first separate work, the  long poem, Whoroscope, which he writes in several hours on June 15 for a contest, on the subject of Time, sponsored by Richard Aldington and Nancy Cunard, which prize he wins.  Begins to translate the "Anna Livia Plurabelle" section of Joyce's Work in Progress (later to become Finnegans Wake) with Alfred Péron.  Under a commission arranged by Thomas McGreevy, he begins to write the monograph, Proust, which is heavily reliant on his deep reading of Schopenhauer; delivers completed monograph to Chatto and Windus toward end of September on his way home to Dublin (via London) to take up his appointment as Lecturer in French at TCD.  First meets Jack B. Yeats (in November), an artist who exercises considerably influence on SB.  SB eventually purchases a painting called "Morning," which hangs over his Paris desk for most of his life.

1931: Reluctantly plays a part in three performances of Le Kid at the Peacock Theatre between February 19-21, SB's only known acting part.  Has a falling out with his mother  and grows increasingly dissatisfied with his teaching post at TCD.  Visits France with his brother, Frank.  Translates numerous pieces for the Surrealist number of This Quarter.  In late Autumn writes "Enueg."  In September becomes engrossed in Victor Bérard's French translation of Homer's Odyssey.  Regularly visits the National Gallery of Ireland.  Decides to resign his post at TCD, though the execution of this decision comes the following year in a letter from Kassel, Germany.

1932: Moves to Paris, resumes friendship with Joyce in the first few weeks, and completes his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women.  Writes "Serena I" after returning to Dublin at the end of August.

1933: Learns that Peggy Sinclair has died of tuberculosis on May 3.  Father dies on June 26 of a heart attack, which death devastates (and haunts) SB.  Finds out on September 25 that Charles Prentice accepted his collection of stories (several of which are recast versions of episodes from Dream of Fair to Middling Women) called More Pricks Than Kicks (MPTK).  Writes the story "Echo's Bones" as an end piece for the short-story collection, but Chatto and Windus rejects it, and it remains unpublished.  Commences intensive psychotherapy in London at the Tavistock Clinic after Christmas to manage his deepening depression. Translates numerous pieces for Nancy Cunard's Negro Anthology which is published in 1934.

1934: Publishes "A Case in a Thousand" in the Bookman in August, which reflects his immersion in psychotherapy.  MPTK is published in London on May 24.  Writes the four line poem "Gnome" and an enthusiastic review of MacGreevy's Poems for Dublin Magazine. 

1935: Attends Carl G. Jung's third lecture at the Tavistock Clinic with his analyst, Wilfred Bion, in October, an experience that resurfaces most overtly in All That Fall (written twenty-one years later) and Footfalls (written over forty years later).  Begins writing Murphy on August 20, which makes extensive use of his detailed knowledge of London's geographical terrain.  A collection of thirteen poems is published in December, Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates.  He terminates psychotherapy.

1936: He returns to Dublin to complete Murphy.  Briefly considers going to Moscow to the State Institute of Cinematography, writing to Eisenstein about the possibility of becoming his pupil, but this comes to nothing.  Writes the poem "Cascando" in July.  Leaves the family home, Cooldrinagh, on September 28 and travels around Germany, keeping a detailed diary of his excursions.  Returns to Cooldrinagh.  "Boss" Sinclair dies on May 4.  SB's brother marries on August 24.  SB leaves Dublin in the middle of October for Paris, which is to be his permanent home for the next fifty-three years. 

1937: First significant attempt to write a play, which is based on the last years in the life of Dr. Samuel Johnson and is called Human Wishes. Returns to Dublin to give evidence at a trial against Oliver St. John Gogarty's book, As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, the action brought by Harry "Boss" Sinclair, before his death, for accusations of slander.  Following his testimony, during which he is thoroughly humiliated, SB returns to Paris.

1938: After dining with friends on 7 January, SB is stabbed by a beggar and pimp named Prudent.  Recovers in Hôpital Broussais, where he corrects proofs to Murphy, and is visited by Suzanne, who not long thereafter begins to live with him.  Murphy is finally published, after 42 rejections, in March.  SB starts to write poetry in French, which allows him to begin purging his writing of unnecessary superfluities.

1939: Hitler invades Poland on September 1; two days later Chamberlain announces that Britain is at war with Germany (as is France by this time).  SB is caught in Dublin visiting his mother but immediately returns to Paris, famously declaring his preference for France at war to Ireland at peace.  Joyce's Finnegans Wake is published.

1940: France crumbles under the Nazi assault in June.

1941: In February SB begins to write Watt in Paris.  Joins the Resistance cell on September 1 called "Gloria SMH," primarily an information network, a decidedly dangerous enterprise—despite SB's subsequently dismissive attitude regarding the experience.  Joyce dies in Zurich in January.

1942: Alfred Péron is arrested.  SB and Suzanne escape a close encounter with the Gestapo and find refuge on October 6 in a small village in the south of France called Roussillon.

1943: Continues on March 1 to write Watt, primarily to ward off ennui.

1944: Finishes manuscript of Watt on December 28.

1945: SB and Suzanne leave Roussillon for Paris early in the year, and SB immediately returns to Dublin to visit his mother only to learn that she suffers from Parkinson's disease.  SB joins the Irish Red Cross as a translator and quartermaster in order to return to France and is posted at St-Lô, Normandy.  Péron dies on May 1.  SB returns to Paris toward the end of the year when his contract comes to an end.  He is awarded the Croix de Guerre for his role in the Resistance.

1946: In Paris writes a short story entitled "Suite," later called "La Fin," which is his first extended prose work in French.  Begins writing his first novel in French, Mercier et Camier, on July 5, and completes it on October 3.  In the final months of 1946, writes three more stories in French: "L'Expulsé," "Premier amour," and "Le Calmant."

1947: Writes first full-length play, in French, Eleutheria.  Begins writing Molloy on May 2 at New Place in Foxrock.  Between this date and January of 1950, completes Molloy, Malone meurt (begun on November 27), and L'Innommable (begun on March 29, 1949) in what amounts to SB's most creatively fertile period.

1948-1949: En attendant Godot is written between October of 1948 and January of 1949, between Malone meurt and L'Innommable, in order to break through an artistic impasse.

1950: May Beckett dies on August 25 and is buried with her husband in the Protestant cemetery at Redford.  Signs an exclusive contract with Les Editions de Minuit which will be the publisher for his French work for the remainder of his life.  Its publisher, Jérôme Lindon, will become a life-long friend.

1951: Molloy is published in March, Malone meurt in October.  The manuscript of Texts pour rien is completed in December.

1952: Builds a house, with money his mother left him, near the village of Ussy-sur-Marne, a place of refuge and solitude that soon facilitates SB's creative energies.  Godot is published in October.  Eleutheria is announced for publication and then withdrawn at the last moment.

1953: Roger Blin directs the premier of Godot on January 19 at the Théâtre de Babylon.  The show receives mixed, but generally sympathetic reviews.  Watt is published.  Watt is finally published in English but in Paris.  Fledgling American publishing house, Grove Press, becomes SB's exclusive American publisher, and the publisher, Barney Rosset becomes a life-long friend.  SB begins to translate Godot into English for his American publisher.   His international reputation is considerably advanced by his American publisher's willingness to promote so apparently un-commercial a writer.

1954: Learns that Frank is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  SB, devastated, rushes to his aid in Killiney.  Frank dies on September 13.  SB writes first draft of what becomes Fin de partie (Endgame), this early version with only two characters.

1955: The English edition of Molloy is published in March by Grove Press.  Waiting for Godot opens in London and Dublin.  Finishes first draft of Fin de partie in the summer.  Nouvelles et textes pour rien is published in November. "Getting known."

1956: The American production of Godot opens on January 3 at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami under the direction of Alan Schneider.  The production is badly received.  During the summer, SB writes All That Fall at the BBC's request; this radio play is clearly saturated with memories of his Foxrock upbringing. 

1957: All That Fall airs on BBC Third Programme  on January 13; the broadcast delights SB who is busy rehearsing in Paris for Fin de partie.  Jack B. Yeats dies in March.  Fin de partie is produced in London on April 3 at the Royal Court Theatre in French.  SB translates Fin de partie into English between May and August.

1958: Begins writing Krapp's Last Tape, a deeply personal play, in February.  Also begins in January the laborious task of translating L'Innommable into English, published as The Unnamable by Grove Press.  On July 8 SB and Suzanne set out for a three-week vacation to Yugoslavia.  Begins writing Comment c'est in December.

1959: Sends Embers to BBC in February.  Ethna MacCarthy dies on May 25.  Receives an honorary D. Litt. from TCD on July 2, which he reluctantly accepts.

1960: Finishes Comment c'est in the summer.  On October 8 begins to write what is to become Happy Days, working on it throughout the next three months.  In the winter moves to a permanent apartment in Paris.

1961: Marries Suzanne on March 25 in a simple, private ceremony.  Returns home after the wedding to revise Happy Days.  Begins translation of Happy Days into French and Comment C'est into English, the latter published by Grove Press as How it is in 1964.  Donald McWhinnie's television production of Godot is broadcast on June 26, with which SB is not satisfied.  In the autumn, SB befriends American academic Lawrence Harvey who is visiting Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship to write about SB's poetry and criticism.  The work will be published as Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic, the only important full-length study (even to date) of these facets of SB's oeuvre.  Words and Music written between November and December and Cascando (his first radio play in French) in December.

1962: Begins Play in July and finishes translating Happy Days as Oh, Les beaux jours in November.  Begins translating How It Is.

1963: Completes Film and Play and assists with the German production of the latter, thus establishing his continuous engagement with the production of his own plays.  Meets Billie Whitelaw for the first time at the London production of Play; becomes captivated by her and commences a long working relationship and a close friendship with the actress.

1964. Travels to New York during the intensely hot summer to aid in the production of Film, starring legendary film actor Buster Keaton (whose work SB greatly admires); this is to be SB's only visit to the United States.

1965: Writes Imagination morte imaginez and Eh Joe (his first television play) in the spring.  Writes Assez and begins Le dépeupleur in the autumn.

1966: Translates Textes pour rien into English and helps with the translation of Watt into French.

1967: SB is diagnosed with glaucoma.  Thomas MacGreevy, one of his oldest friends, dies, which, consequently, devastates SB.  Begins a derecting career in Berlin at the Schiller-Theater Werkstatt with Endspiel (Endgame) which opens 26 Sept. 1967.

1969:  Writes Sans and translates it as Lessness.  Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on October 23.  A dark horse, SB beat out the favorite that year, Norman Mailer.  Rather than rejecting it like Jean-Paul Sartre, he sends his French publisher, Jérôme Lindon, to accept the prize in his absence and quickly disperses the prize money to needy friends.

1970: Finally consents to the long-delayed publications of Mercier et Camier and Premier amour, both of which were written in 1946.  Undergoes eye surgery for cataracts.

1972: Writes Not I in the spring and translates Premier amour into English in April-May.  During the summer, SB is inundated by friends, family, and visitors, among them Deirdre Bair who is writing SB's first biography.  He famously tells her that he will neither help nor hinder her efforts.

1973: Despite an emotionally wrenching series of rehearsals, Billie Whitelaw leads a very successful production of Not I in London, thus deepening SB's respect for her talents.  Writes As the Story Was Told in August.

1974: Experiences a creative explosion and is inspired to begin That Time, a companion piece to Not I, on June 8 in Paris; both of these highly experimental plays, as SB himself acknowledges, challenge the remotest limits of what is possible in a theatre.

1975: Directs Godot in German at Berlin in March and begins Footfalls.  Also directs the French version of Not I (Pas moi) in Paris in April and writes Pour finir encore in December.

1976: Begins the television play _but the clouds_ in the autumn.  Footfalls and That Time are performed at the Royal Court Theatre on May 20 as part of a seventieth birthday celebration.  Beckett himself directs Whitelaw in Footfalls.

1977: Begins to write Company, a profoundly personal piece saturated with memories form childhood.  Filmed version of Not I is aired on BBC2 in April.  Directs Krapp's Last Tape in Berlin.

1979: SB's oldest friend of more than fifty years, A.J. ("Con") Leventhal dies on October 3.  Also begins writing Mal vu mal dit (Ill Seen Ill Said).

1980:.  On May 7, SB flies to London to direct Endgame with Rick Cluchey and the San Quentin Drama Workshop.  At those rehearsals S. E. Gontarski asks SB for a new play for a Symposium planned for May of 1981 in Columbus, Ohio, to honor his seventy-fifth birthday.  He begins to write what will become Ohio Impromptu.  It has its world premiere appropriately enough in Ohio, directed by Alan Schneider, on 9 May 1981

1981: Ohio Impromptu has its world premiere in Ohio, directed by Alan Schneider, on 9 May 1981.  Writes and translates Rockaby at the instigation of Danielle Labeille for another festival honoring his 75^th birthday.

1982: Writes and translates Catastrophe; writes and directs "Nacht und Träume."  SB's production of Quad is broadcast in Germany by Süddeutscher Rundfunk, and Catastrophe is performed at the Avignon Festival.

1984: Roger Blin dies on January 20.  Visits London to oversee San Quentin Drama Workshop production of Waiting for Godot, prepared by Walter Asmuss.

1986: SB's health starts to decline with the beginnings of emphysema.

1988: Writes "Fragment for Barney Rosset," which becomes Stirrings Still; published in a luxury edition with illustrations by Louis LeBrocquy.

1989:  Suzanne dies on July 17.  On December 11, SB falls into a coma and dies at 1:00 p.m. on December 22.  He is buried beside Suzanne in Montparnasse Cemetery.

1992: Dream of Fair to Middling Women is posthumously published.

1995: Eleutheria is posthumously published.

Prepared by S.E. Gontarski

© Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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Creada: 25/10/2008 Última Actualización: 27/11/2008