Murphy (22 page)

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1927. His made his poetry debut in 1930 with
Whoroscope
and followed it with essays and two novels before World War Two. He wrote one of his most famous plays,
Waiting for Godot
, in 1949 but it wasn’t published in English until 1954.
Waiting for Godot
brought Beckett international fame and firmly established him as a leading figure in the Theatre of the Absurd. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. Beckett continued to write prolifically for radio, TV and the theatre until his death in 1989.

J. C. C. Mays is Emeritus Professor of English, University College, Dublin. He has edited the Beckett section of the Field Day Anthology, the Bollingen edition of the poems of Coleridge for Princeton University Press, the poetry of James Joyce, and titles in the Cornell Yeats.

ENDGAME

Preface by Rónán McDonald

COMPANY/ILL SEEN ILL SAID/WORSTWARD HO/STIRRINGS STILL

Edited by Dirk Van Hulle

KRAPP’S LAST TAPE AND OTHER SHORTER PLAYS

Preface by S. E. Gontarski

MURPHY

Edited by J. C. C. Mays

WATT

Edited by C. J. Ackerley

Forthcoming titles

MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS

Edited by Cassandra Nelson

ALL THAT FALL AND OTHER PLAYS FOR RADIO AND SCREEN

Preface by Everett Frost

MOLLOY

Edited by Shane Weller

MALONE DIES

Edited by Peter Boxall

THE UNNAMABLE

Edited by Steven Connor

HOW IT IS

Edited by Magessa O’Reilly

HAPPY DAYS

Preface by James Knowlson

THE EXPELLED/THE CALMATIVE/THE END/FIRST LOVE

Edited by Christopher Ricks

WAITING FOR GODOT

Preface by Mary Bryden

TEXTS FOR NOTHING/RESIDUA/FIZZLES: SHORTER FICTION
1950–1981

Edited by Mark Nixon

MERCIER AND CAMIER

Edited by Sean Kennedy

SELECTED POEMS
1930–1988

Edited by David Wheatley