Murphy Read Free Page B

so on. One might also note some deliberately Hiberno-English spellings, old-fashioned Anglo-Irish even in his own day. Take Cathleen na Hennessey (for Ni p. 31), Clonmachnois and Connaught (p. 167): na for Ni is a solecism also affected by W. B. Yeats. Beckett could spell Clonmacnoise correctly as his letters prove, Connaught imports the odour of rugby clubs and the London hotel. It is typical that Dun Laoghaire on p. 76 became Kingstown in the French (the German has misspelt Loaghaire ), as if to lean on the point being made. Then there are run-together words (e.g. knighterrant p. 35, corpseobedient p. 119) and possible Irishisms (e.g. took tube p. 77) which, even if not definitely deliberate, give the original text its particular flavour. The same is true of spellings that are deliberately pedantic (e.g. Petrouchka p. 4, katatonic p. 121). These are normalised in the later English (Calder-Picador) editions, levelling the tone.
    Details that might look accidental, then, are more often designed, and a number of mistakes are allowed if, in fact, they were not in the first place contrived. Taken together with the circumstances of restricted access to the manuscript draft and the broken line of transmission, it is inevitable that the 1938 Routledge text should possess particular authority. Whatever the difficulty of finding a publisher, Beckett composed his text with particular care and was afterwards moved by considerable regard for the integrity of what he had achieved. One might even reckon the enforced period he spent in hospital while he corrected and revised proofs turned out to the advantage of the text as published, as did the scrutiny it was subjected to when that text became the first of his writings to be translated into French. The assistance he gave his German translator likewise prompted a second, detailed re-reading: different adjustments were made, to be sure, but they serve to confirm the integrity of the Routledge text.
    The text that follows therefore revises the first, 1938 edition in only two instances, and both are minor: the correct spelling of the brand name Ballitoes has been substituted for Bollitoes on p. 26, and the word so has been inserted on p. 36 (‘unless she had superlative reasons for doing so’), as it was inserted in the HRC typescript. It happens that the Calder editions incorporate these same two corrections but, as I have said, they also introduce errors and unnecessary minor variations. For all that strikes a reader as unfamiliar or puzzling, odd or simply wrong, I strongly recommend the annotations by C. J. Ackerley published under the title Demented Particulars (Journal of Beckett Studies Books, 2004). His book offers help at every turn and supplies further background to most of the references in this short introduction.

Table of Dates
    [Note: where unspecified, translations from French to English or vice versa are by Beckett]  
    1906
 
13 April
Samuel Beckett [Samuel Barclay Beckett] born at ‘Cooldrinagh’, a house in Foxrock, a village south of Dublin, on Good Friday, the second child of William Beckett and May Beckett, née Roe; he is preceded by a brother, Frank Edward, born 26 July 1902.
1911
 
 
Enters kindergarten at Ida and Pauline Elsner’s private academy in Leopardstown.
1915
 
 
Attends larger Earlsfort House School in Dublin.
1920
 
 
Follows Frank to Portora Royal, a distinguished Protestant boarding school in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (soon to become part of Northern Ireland).
1923
 
October
Enrolls at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) to study for an Arts degree.
1926
 
August
First visit to France, a month-long cycling tour of the Loire Valley.
1927
 
April–August
Travels through Florence and Venice, visiting museums, galleries, and churches.
December
Receives B.A. in Modern Languages (French and Italian) and graduates first in the First Class.
1928
 
Jan.–June
Teaches French and English at Campbell College, Belfast.
September
First trip to