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 Joyces Finnegans Wake; also a story, Assumption (in transition); contribs. Che Sciagura What a misfortune] to TCD Miscellany; partial rift with Joyce over Lucias 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 publishers 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-
1944 |
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 Lindons 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 Krapps Last Tape in London; commences affair with Barbara Bray in London. |
1959 |
SB writes Embers; begins Comment Cest [How It Is] as Pim; receives D. Litt. from TCD. |
1960 |
SB begins Happy Days [Oh les beaux jours]; Krapps 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. |
1966-1967 |
SB issues short fiction in single collection as Tetes-Mortes [Nos 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 Artists Guild), 1984. |
1986 |
SB begins Stirrings Still [completed 1987]. |
1987 |
SB diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease; issues Stirrings Still; writes What is the Word. |
1989 |
SB predeceased by Suzanne, 17 July; SB moves into maison de retraite [old peoples home], Montparnasse; d. 22 Dec.; bur. Montparnasse. |
|
|