Samuel Beckett A Chronology


1906 Samuel Barclay Beckett born on Good Friday, April 13, at Foxrock, Dublin, the second son of William and Mary Roe Beckett

1920-23 Educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen

1923-27 Reads French and Italian at Trinity College, Dublin. In BA examinations placed first in class in Modern Literature. Soends 1926 summer vacation in France, on a bicycle tour of the chateaux of the Loire.

1928 Exchange lecturer at Ecole Normale Supérieur in Paris. Meets James Joyce.

1930 First separately published work, a poem, Whoroscope. Appointed assistant lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin.

1931 Performance of first dramatic work, Le Kid, a parody of Corneille, at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin. Proust, his only major piece of literary criticism, published. Resigned his lectureship at Trinity.

1932 Lives for brief periods in Kassel, Paris, London and Dublin.

1933 Death of his father.

1934 Publication of More Pricks than Kicks.

1935 Echo's Bones, a cycle of thirteen poems, published.

1937 Moves to Paris. In November testifies in Dublin at the libel trial of Oliver St John Gogarty.

1938 Stabbed on the street by a Parisian pimp named Prudent. Murphy, his first novel, is published after 42 rejections.

1942 French Resistance group in which Beckett is active is betrayed to the Gestapo. Beckett escapes and flees to Roussillon, near Avignon, where he remains during the next two years.

1945 Awarded the Croix de Guerre for his work in the Resistance movement.

1946 Begins writing the trilogy of novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable in French.

1949 Finishes writing En Attendant Godot.

1950 Death of his mother.

1953 World premiere of En Attendant Godot at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris.

1954 Waiting for Godot, translated by Beckett, is published by Grove Press in New York.

1957 World premiere of Fin de Partie, in French, at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

1958 World premiere of Krapp's Last Tape in London.

1959 Receives an honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin. Embers, a radio play, wins the Prix Italia.

1961 World premiere of Happy Days in New York.

1963 World premiere of Play in German translation in Ulm.

1964 Film made in New York starring Buster Keaton.

1968 Come and Go performed for the first time in English at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin.

1969 Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1972 World premiere of Not I at the Lincoln Center, New York.

1975 Directs Waiting for Godot at the Schiller Theatre, Berlin.

1976 That Time and Footfalls performed in London. Ends and Odds published in London and New York.

1978 Publication of Mirlitonades (short poems).

1980 Publication of Company, a novella.

1981 World premiere of Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu in America.

1982 Catastrophe, dedicated to the imprisoned Czech dramatist Vaclav Havel, is performed in France. Quad is premiered on German television. Ill Seen Ill Said is published in London.

1983 What Where? is premiered in New York.

1984 Collected Shorter Prose, 1945-1980 is published in London.

1986 Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works is published in London.

1988 'What is the word' is published in Grand Street, New York.

1989 Stirring Still is published in London and in New York and as Soubresauts in Paris. Beckett dies in Paris on December 22.