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Appendix a Eighteenth-Century Items in Beckett's Library at His Death

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Appendix a Eighteenth-Century Items in Beckett's Library at His Death Appendix A Eighteenth-Century Items in Beckett’s Library at His Death Note: I am grateful to Samuel Beckett’s nephew, Edward Beckett, for his efforts in identifying these volumes. In his letter of 16 September 1992, Mr. Beckett reminded me: “You must understand that my uncle disposed of a lot of books throughout his life, especially towards the latter part of it. Nevertheless I imagine that he kept the ones that meant the most to him.” Only one of these volumes is signed and dated; although we cannot be sure when Beckett purchased the others, I have speculated below when there is evidence arguing for a particular date. Berkeley, George. A New Theory of Vision and Other Writings, ed. A. D. Lindsay. (1910; London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1926). In addition to A New Theory, contains A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. It is not surprising to find this volume in Beckett’s library, given his allusions to Berkeley’s philosophy, from Murphy (written 1934–36) to the headnote to his film called Film (written 1963). Berkeley’s Commonplace Book, ed. G. A. Johnston (London: Faber, 1930). Probably purchased in the early 1930s; in a 23 December 1932 letter to Thomas MacGreevy, Beckett says that his friend Joseph Hone recommended the book to him and that he has been reading it. Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson,” including Boswell’s “Journal of a Tour to the Heb- rides” and Johnson’s “Diary of a Journey to North Wales,” ed. George Birkbeck Hill, 6 vols. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1887). Although Beckett read Boswell’s Life in the mid-1930s, James Knowlson (20 May 1994 letter to author) has assured me that he has evidence that these particular volumes were purchased in March 1961 in a Brighton bookshop. Clifford, James L. Young Samuel Johnson (London: Heinemann, 1955). Gray, Thomas. Poems and Letters (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1922). Gray is echoed in Happy Days (1961), although Beckett may have purchased this book many years before, perhaps as early as the 1930s, when he was reading so much eighteenth-century literature. Hibbert, Christopher. The Personal History of Samuel Johnson (London: Longmans, 1971). This volume and the next show the persistence of Beckett’s interest in Johnson for more than 30 years after he abandoned a play on Johnson’s last years. See Thrale below. Johnson, Samuel. The Complete English Poems. ed. J. D. Fleeman (Harmond- sworth, England: Penguin Books, 1971). Beckett earlier had undoubtedly owned another edition of his poems; in 1936–37 he began a play about Johnson’s last years, titled (after the famous poem) Human Wishes. Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language....To which is prefixed a history of the language, and an English grammar, 2 vols. 8th edn, corr. and 165 166 Appendix A rev. (London: J. Johnson, 1799). In a letter to me of 30 September 1986, Ruby Cohn said that Beckett told her that he must have purchased the Dictionary in Dublin, probably in the 1930s. In his letter to me of 16 September 1992, Edward Beckett said that he has reason to believe his uncle bought the volume at Greene’s, a bookshop opposite his father’s surveying office on Clare Street; interestingly, in Dream of Fair to Middling Women (1932) there is a reference to “Green’s bloody library.” It may be that Beckett purchased other older volumes as well at this bookshop. Cf. Sterne below. Johnson, Samuel. Diaries, Prayers, and Annals, ed. E. L. McAdam, Jr. Vol. 1 of The Works of Samuel Johnson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958). Since Beckett refers to the Annals, Prayers, and Meditations in his 1936–37 Johnson note- books, as well as in letters of the same period to Thomas MacGreevy and Mary Manning, then he surely read them at this time in their eighteenth- and nine- teenth-century editions. Presumably, this is the book Mary Manning Howe sent him in the late 1950s and for which he thanks her in a letter dated 2 January 1959: “I read the Johnson book with great relish. ” Johnsonian Miscellanies, ed. George Birkbeck Hill. 2 vols. (1897; reprinted London: Constable and Co., 1966). Among other things, this volume includes Mrs. Thrale’s Anecdotes (cf. Thrale below), which Beckett had read in 1936–37, in preparation for writing Human Wishes. As with the above item, he either owned the 1897 edition and later gave it away, or simply read Hill’s edition in the National Library in Dublin. But his interest in Johnson persisted, as is clear as well from several of the following items. Johnson on Shakespeare: Essays and Notes Set Forth with an Introduction, ed. Walter Raleigh (1908; London: Oxford University Press, 1957). Lynd, Robert. Dr. Johnson and Company, (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1946). The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, with life of the author ...(Edinburgh: Gall and Inglis, 1881). 6 engravings. Volume signed and dated inside front cover: “Samuel Beckett 3/36.” In a letter dated 23 March 1936 Beckett informed Thomas MacGreevy that he was reading Pope, surely in this edition; Beckett also quotes from Pope’s Pastorals and The Dunciad in his Whoroscope notebook (1932–38). Pope, Alexander. Essay on Criticism, ed. John Sargeaunt (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1909). Since this work was on the course of study for Trinity College Honors students in the Hilary term 1925, it is likely that Beckett purchased this second-hand volume at this time. Cf. Swift, The Drapier’s Letters, below. The Works of Laurence Sterne. 5th edn, 7 vols. (1779; Dublin: D. Chamberlaine, 1780). Beckett owned Volume 4 of this “First, or Dublin, Collected Edition,” which he may well have purchased in a Dublin bookshop, perhaps Greene’s (see Johnson, Dictionary, above). Vol. 4 contains A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, Letters from Yorick to Eliza, and Sterne’s Letters to his Friends. This was the oldest eighteenth-century book owned by Beckett at his death, earlier even than his edition of Johnson’s Dictionary; together, Beckett’s purchase of the two books, and his retention of them, suggests that there was an element of the antiquarian in his eighteenth-century interests. Like the next item, was this purchased in 1938? The Works of Laurence Sterne (London: Oxford University Press, 1910). This was a single-volume edition in The World’s Classics series published first in 1903 Appendix A 167 and reprinted in 1905 and again in 1910. Given the question regarding the potential influence of Tristram Shandy on Beckett, it is significant that he owned a copy at the time of his death. He probably purchased it shortly before 5 August 1938 (he was in Dublin from mid-July to the end of August), when he reported in a letter to MacGreevy that he had been reading Tristram Shandy. Cf. above comment on The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Swift, Jonathan. The Drapier’s Letters, Vol. 6 of The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., ed. Temple Scott. Bohn’s Standard Library (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1922). As is the case with Pope’s Essay on Criticism (cf. entry immediately above), this work appeared in the course of study for Trinity Honors students in Hilary 1925, and thus it would seem that in this year Beckett splurged on this recent edition. Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. The World’s Classics Series. John Hayward (1955; London: Oxford University Press, 1963). Of course Beckett had read this book many years before, and at one time must have owned an earlier edition. In 1976 an acquaintance of Beckett’s reported that the author had admitted a year earlier that he was rereading Gulliver’s Travels, undoubtedly in this edition: see E. M. Cioran in Partisan Review 41(4) (1974); reprinted in Samuel Beckett: the Critical Heritage, ed. Laurence Graver and Raymond Federman (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 325. Thrale, Hester Lynch. Dr. Johnson: “The Anecdotes” of Mrs. Piozzi in their Original Form, ed. Richard Ingrams (London: Chatto and Windus, 1984). From his extensive notes in the Johnson notebooks, we know that Beckett read this book in 1936–37, probably in Hill’s edition of the Johnson Miscellanies (see above); nonetheless, his purchase of this book as late as the mid-1980s demon- strates his lifelong interest in Johnson. The volume was the most recent eight- eenth-century item in Beckett’s library at his death. Vulliamy, C. E. Mrs. Thrale of Streatham: Her Place in the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson and in the Society of Her Time . (London: Jonathan Cape, 1936). Since there are extensive notes from this book in Beckett’s Johnson notebooks from 1936–37, and since it contains a chapter on “Dr. Johnson in Love” (a primary focus of his projected play Human Wishes), we can probably assume that this volume was purchased near to its date of publication. Appendix B Trinity Course of Study for English Honors The course of study for students competing for Honors in English during Beck- ett’s junior freshman and senior freshman years at Trinity College is given in the 1923–24 Calendar. These are the requirements under which he would have entered. As explained in Chapter 1, students were also expected to read assigned sections of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of English Verse, and were assigned particu- lar literary periods from a history such as Wyatt and Low’s Textbook of English Literature. Specific works appointed were as follows. (For each term I have listed the results of Beckett’s English Honors Examination.) 1924 Hilary: More, Utopia; Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book I; and Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry V.
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