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Samuel Beckett Collection 1932-1996 MS.1991.001 Samuel Beckett Collection 1932-1996 MS.1991.001 http://hdl.handle.net/2345/3248 Archives and Manuscripts Department John J. Burns Library Boston College 140 Commonwealth Avenue Chestnut Hill 02467 library.bc.edu/burns/contact URL: http://www.bc.edu/burns Table of Contents Summary Information .................................................................................................................................... 3 Administrative Information ............................................................................................................................ 4 Biographical Note: Samuel Beckett .............................................................................................................. 6 Biographical Note: Calvin Israel ................................................................................................................... 6 Biographical Note: Robert Pinget .................................................................................................................. 7 Biographical Note: Barney Rosset ................................................................................................................ 7 Biographical Note: Judith Schmidt Douw ..................................................................................................... 8 Biographical Note: Alan Schneider ............................................................................................................... 8 Scope and Contents ........................................................................................................................................ 9 Arrangement ................................................................................................................................................... 9 Collection Inventory ..................................................................................................................................... 11 I: Samuel Beckett - Calvin Israel collection ............................................................................................. 11 II: Samuel Beckett - Robert Pinget letters ................................................................................................ 18 III: Samuel Beckett - Barney Rosset collection ....................................................................................... 21 IV: Judith Schmidt Douw collection of Samuel Beckett letters ............................................................... 33 V: Samuel Beckett - Judith Schmidt Douw collection ............................................................................. 37 VI: Alan Schneider - Samuel Beckett collection ...................................................................................... 44 VII: Other Beckett-related material .......................................................................................................... 54 Samuel Beckett Collection MS.1991.001 - Page 2 - Summary Information Creator: Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989 Title: Samuel Beckett collection ID: MS.1991.001 Date [inclusive]: 1932-1996 Physical Description 22.25 Linear Feet (58 boxes) Language of the Materials in this collection are primarily in English, with some French Material: and German. Abstract: The Samuel Beckett collection at the John J. Burns Library is composed of seven distinct collections of Beckett-related material including manuscripts and typescripts by Beckett, correspondence with Beckett, ephemera, photographs, and publications by and about Beckett. Preferred Citation Identification of item, Box number, Folder number, Samuel Beckett Collection, MS.1991.001, John J. Burns Library, Boston College. Samuel Beckett Collection MS.1991.001 - Page 3 - Administrative Information Publication Information Processed by George R. Fuir, SJ, 1991; Tina McCusker, 2000; Christopher Kamerbeek, 2002; Scott Peterson, 2006; Mark Roskoski; and Amy Braitsch, Elise Franklin, Sarah Hills, and Katie Lyle in November 2011. This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace. Restrictions on access Collection is open for research. Provenance The Samuel Beckett - Calvin Israel collection was purchased from George Robert Minkoff, Inc., in 1991. The Samuel Beckett - Robert Pinget letters were purchased from Gekoshi in 2001. The Samuel Beckett - Barney Rosset collection was purchased from George Robert Minkoff, Inc., in 1993 and 1996. The Judith Schmidt Douw collection of Samuel Beckett letters was purchased from Schmidt Douw in 2006. The Samuel Beckett - Judith Schmidt Douw collection was a gift from Schmidt Douw in 2006. The Alan Schneider - Samuel Beckett collection was purchased in 1994 from multiple sources. Other materials were a combination of gifts and purchases, 1991-2008. For further research Emory University maintains a register of the location of Samuel Beckett letters. This resource may help researchers locate additional original correspondence by Samuel Beckett held in publicly available archives. Beckett Location Register https://beckett.library.emory.edu/ Processing Information In 2011 the various Beckett holdings at the John J. Burns Library were rehoused and the materials collectively described in this single finding aid. In most cases, the rehousing did not disrupt the previous arrangement. The collections and materials brought together in this finding aid are those previously known as: -- Calvin Israel – Samuel Beckett Collection --Robert Pinget – Samuel Beckett Collection --Barney Rosset – Samuel Beckett Collection --Judith Schmidt Douw Letters to Samuel Beckett --Judith Schmidt Douw Collection of Samuel Beckett Letters --Alan Schneider – Samuel Beckett Collection Added to these collections, for the ease of description and access, were a few small pieces of Beckett- related material not connected to any larger Beckett collection. Samuel Beckett Collection MS.1991.001 - Page 4 - Restrictions on use Copyright interests have not been transferred to Boston College. Samuel Beckett Collection MS.1991.001 - Page 5 - Biographical Note: Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett was born on Good Friday, April 13, 1906, in Foxrock, Ireland, near Dublin. He studied modern languages at Trinity College in Dublin and graduated in 1927. The following year, Beckett went to Paris, where he quickly became acquainted with a group of avant-garde artists, including James Joyce. There, Beckett taught English at the École Normale Superieure in Paris for two years before returning to Trinity College to teach French in 1930. He left Trinity College after one year to travel through Europe. Beckett settled in Paris, France in 1937, and lived there for most of the rest of his life. During World War II, Beckett joined an underground resistance group. He was forced to flee from Paris to unoccupied France in 1942 because of the threat of arrest by the German Gestapo. Hiding in the village of Roussillon in Southern France, Beckett worked as an agricultural laborer until the war ended in 1945, at which time he returned to Paris and began his most productive creative period. As a poet, Beckett made his debut in 1930 with "Whoroscope," followed by a collection of essays, Proust (1931), and one of his short stories, "More Pricks than Kicks" (1934). His career as a novelist began in 1938 with the publication of Murphy. After the war, Beckett wrote the trilogy of novels Molloy (1951), Malone Meurt (1951, "Malone Dies"), and L'Innommable (1953, "The Unnamable"). He also wrote plays during this period, including Eleutheria and Waiting for Godot. Upon its first performances in France and then America, Waiting for Godot brought Beckett international fame. Beckett translated Waiting for Godot into English himself - something he would do for almost all his work - and it was published by Grove Press in 1953. In the succeeding years Beckett avoided the limelight and dedicated his life to his work, which was continuously published by Grove Press in America during his lifetime. He made his only trip to the United States in 1964 to be present at the shooting of the film he had written entitled Film. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. Beckett died in Paris on December 22, 1989. Sources Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. "Beckett, Samuel," accessed July 31, 2014, http:// www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/57966/Samuel-Beckett. Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. "Samuel Beckett." Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2001. Biographical Note: Calvin Israel Calvin Israel was an associate professor of English at the State University of New York at Geneseo. He began his relationship with Beckett by writing a magazine article to publically correct an encyclopedia error concerning Beckett's work. Beckett read the article and initiated a correspondence with Israel. After a 1976 meeting with Israel in Paris, Beckett sent him manuscripts and other materials. Israel also began a Samuel Beckett Collection MS.1991.001 - Page 6 - personal collection of Beckett's work and sent many of his purchases to Beckett to be signed. Israel died in 1984, after which his collection of Beckett materials passed to his wife Joann. Biographical Note: Robert Pinget Robert Pinget was born in 1919 in Geneva, Switzerland. As a young man, he studied and practiced law. He became dissatisfied with his legal career, however, and moved to Paris and enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts to study painting in 1946. Gradually he discovered his interest in writing and became ensconced in the Nouveau Roman (or "New Novel")
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