Brief Bio-chronology of Samuel Beckett

1906 SB born 13 April, youngest son of May & Bill Beckett, of “Cooldrinagh”, Foxrock, Co. Dublin.
1920 SB enters Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh.
1923 SB enters Trinity College Dublin [TCD]; studies Modern Languages (French & Italian).
1926 SB plays cricket for TCD, touring in England in 1926-27.
1927 SB graduates from TCD with BA Hons (1st; Gold Medal & £50 prize); visits Florence.
1928 SB takes up lectureship at the École Normale Superieure, Paris; meets Thomas MacGreevy and hence introduced to James Joyce; visits Sinclair family relatives in Kassel; has unhappy affair with his cousin Peggy there.
1929 SB issues “Dante ... Bruno .. Vico ..... Joyce” - a defence of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake; also a story, “Assumption” (in transition); contribs. “Che Sciagura” What a misfortune]” to TCD Miscellany; partial rift with Joyce over Lucia’s infatuation with him.
1930 SB reading Descartes and reading Schopenhauer; commences learning German seriously; wins prize with “Whoroscope”, a poem; affair with Nancy Cunard (the donor of the prize); takes up lectureship in French at TCD; experiences panic attacks and catatonia;
1931 SB publishes Proust; contrib. “Alba” to Dublin Magazine - based on his affair with Ethna MacCarthy; troubled by boils.
1932 SB resigns from TCD lecturership in a letter sent from Paris; completes Dream of Fair to Middling Women (publ. 1992); moves back to to Dublin; contribs. “Dante and the Lobster” to This Quarter (Putnam); subscribes to “Poetry is Vertical” manifesto, in transition [journal].
1933 SB suffers the death of his father and of Peggy Sinclair (from TB); completes More Pricks than Kicks and receives a publisher’s offer; settles in London to attend the Tavistock Clinic for psycho-analysis.
1934 More Pricks than Kicks appears; SB contribs. “Recent Irish Poetry” to The Bookman [jounral] under pseud. “Andrew Belis”, severely criticising Irish poets or archaicism and “Cuchulanoid” tendencies.
1935 SB attends a lecture by C.G. Jung at the Tavistock Clinic; writes Murphy; issues Echoes Bones and Other Precipitates; returns to Dublin and proceeds rapidly with Murphy.
1936

SB travels in Germany, Sept. 1936-April 1937; returns to Dublin; reads Descartes’ contemporary Geulincx in the TCD Library; experiences infatuation with Betty Stockton; has an affair with Mary Howe [née Manning];

1937 SB returns to Dublin; gives evidence at the Gogarty-Sinclair libel trial (called ‘the bawd and blasphemer from Paris’ by prosecuting counsel); returns to Paris; Murphy is accepted by Routledge (London).
1938 SB stabbed in the street by a Parisian pimp (‘for no reason at all’); visited in hospital by Suzanne Descheveaux-Dumesnil, who was present at the scene; Murphy published.
1940 Germany invades France; SB leaves Paris and visits Joyce in “Free France”; returns to Paris and joins Resistance cell ‘Gloria’.
1942 ‘Gloria’ betrayed by collaborator-priest; SB flees with Suzanne to to Roussillon (Vaucluse); writes Watt in Roussillon.
1945 SB visits family in Ireland; experiences vision of ‘darkness’ and his future literary path (prob. on Dun Laoghaire pier); SB commences work for Irish Red Cross as hospital quarter-master at Saint-Lô.
1946 SB composes the Nouvelles [“First Love”, “The Expelled”, “The Calmative”, “The End”); begins Mercier et Camier.
1947 SB writes Molloy [in French], partly in Dublin and partly in France.
1948 SB writes Malone meurt [Malone Dies], orig. as “L’absent”; commences Waiting for Godot.
1949 SB rents room in farmhouse at Ussy-sur-Marne, 1949; begins l’Innommable [The Unnamable].
1950 SB suffers the death of May Beckett; submits Molloy to Jérôme Lindon (Edition de minuit).
1951 Molloy and Malone Meurt [Malone Dies] both published by Lindon’s Edition de minuit.
1952 En attendant Godot [Waiting for Godot] published by Lindon.
1953 En attendant Godot staged at 19 Jan. 1953, Théâtre de Babylone, Paris [dir. Roger Blin]; l’Innommable published; embarks on love-affair with Pamela Mitchell; begins Textes pour rien (pub. 1955).
1954 SB suffers the death of his elder br. Frank; Pamela Mitchell moves to Paris to continue the affair with SB.
1955 First English-language production of Waiting for Godot, simultaneously in London and Dublin; SB begins Fin de Partie [Endgame].
1956 SB writes All That Fall for radio; Waiting for Godot received disasterously in Miami, directed by Alan Schneider.
1957 Fin de partie staged London (French version); Waiting for Godot staged at San Quentin Prison (US).
1958 English version of Endgame produced with Krapp’s Last Tape in London; commences affair with Barbara Bray in London.
1959 SB writes Embers; begins Comment C’est [How It Is] as “Pim”; receives D. Litt. from TCD.
1960 SB begins Happy Days [Oh les beaux jours]; Krapp’s Last Tape premiered at Théâtre Recamier (Paris) in trans. made by author with Pierre Leyris.
1961 Comment c’est published; SB writes Words and Music and Cascando; Barbara Bray moves to Paris and resumes affair with Beckett; SB formally marries Suzanne.
1962 writes Play in English; Happy Days produced in London.
1963 Play produced in Germany as Spiel.
1964 How It Is published (Grove Press, NY); shoots Film in US with Buster Keaton (dir. Alan Schnieder]; Play staged in London.
1965 SB writes Eh Joe and Come and Go; publishes Imagination Dead Imagine; Film wins Prix Filmcritica, Venice.
1966 SB issues short fiction in single collection as Tetes-Mortes [No’s Knife] in French and English; Film wins Special Jury Prize, Tours, 1966.
1969 SB wins Nobel Prize for Literature; Breath staged in London as part of 0h! Calcutta, a review mounted by Ken Tynan; builds home at Ussy-sur-Marne but retains Paris apartment.
1970 SB issues Le Depeupleur [The Lost Ones]; publication of Mercier et Camier and Premier Amour [First Love]; first of two operations for glaucoma.
1972-1975 SB writes Not I; directs Billie Whitelaw as ‘Mouth’ in same; issues That Time; SB writes Footfalls and That Time.
1976 SB issues For to End Yet Again and Other Fizzles and All Strange Away; That Time and Footfalls staged in London with Not I; writes Ghost Trio.
1977 SB writes ... but the clouds, produced by BBC as Shades with Ghost Trio, and Not I; SB commences Company.
1979 A Piece of Monologue staged; SB issues Company.
1980 SB writes Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu.
1981 SB issues Mal Vu Mal Dit [Ill Seen Ill Said]; Quad issued as film for German Television; begins Worstward Ho.
1982 SB writes Catastrophe (ded. to Vaclev Havel) and Nacht und Traume, both produced on German TV.
1983 SB issues Westward Ho; writes What Where.
1984 SB elected “Saoi” of Aosdána (Republic of Ireland Artist’s Guild), 1984.
1986 SB begins Stirrings Still [completed 1987].
1987 SB diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease; issues Stirrings Still; writes “What is the Word”.
1989 SB predeceased by Suzanne, 17 July; SB moves into maison de retraite [old people’s home], Montparnasse; d. 22 Dec.; bur. Montparnasse.

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