The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett offers an accessible introduction to issues animating the field of Beckett studies today.

The world fame of Samuel Beckett is due to a combination of high academic esteem and immense popularity. An innovator in prose fiction to rival Joyce, his plays have been the most influential in modern theatre history. As an author in both English and French and a writer for the page and the stage, Beckett has been the focus for specialist treatment in each of his many guises, but there have been few attempts to provide a conspectus view. This book, first published in 1994, provides thirteen introductory essays on every aspect of Beckett's work, some paying particular attention to his most famous plays (e.g. Waiting for Godot and Endgame) and his prose fictions (e.g. the 'trilogy' and Murphy). Other essays tackle his radio and television drama, his theatre directing and his poetry, followed by more general issues such as Beckett's bilingualism and his relationship to the philosophers. Reference material is provided at the front and back of the book.

In the past decade, there has been an unprecedented upsurge of interest in Samuel Beckett's works. The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett offers an accessible and engrossing introduction to a key set of issues animating the field of Beckett studies today. This Companion considers Beckett's lasting significance by addressing a host of relevant topics. Written by a team of renowned scholars, this volume presents a continuum in Beckett studies ranging from theoretical approaches to performance studies, from manuscript research to the study of bilingualism, intertextuality, late modernism, history, philosophy, ethics, body and mind. The emphasis on burgeoning critical approaches aids the reader's understanding of recent developments in Beckett studies while prompting further exploration, assisted by the guide to further reading.

This is an eloquent and accessible introduction to one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. This book provides biographical and contextual information, but more fundamentally, it also considers how we might think about an enduringly difficult and experimental novelist and playwright who often challenges the very concepts of meaning and interpretation. It deals with his life, intellectual and cultural background, plays, prose, and critical response and relates Beckett's work and vision to the culture and context from which he wrote. McDonald provides a sustained analysis of the major plays, including Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Happy Days and his major prose works including Murphy, Watt and his famous 'trilogy' of novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable). This introduction concludes by mapping the huge terrain of criticism Beckett's work has prompted, and it explains the turn in recent years to understanding Beckett within his historical context.

Updated edition of this popular Companion examining the wide range of Pinter's work, and his continuing impact and influence.

This is the perfect overview of the Irish novel from the seventeenth century to the present day.