Samuel Beckett's Library

Samuel Beckett's Library critically examines the reading notes and marginalia contained in the books of Samuel Beckett's surviving library in Paris. Previously inaccessible to scholars, this is the first study to assess the importance of the marginalia, inscriptions, and other manuscript notes in the 750 volumes of the library. Setting the library into context with other manuscript material such as drafts and notebooks, Samuel Beckett's Library examines the way in which Beckett absorbed, “translated,” and transmitted his reading in his own work. This book thus illuminates Beckett's cultural and intellectual world, and shows the ways in which his reading often engendered writing.

Dirk Van Hulle, Professor of Literature in English at the University of Antwerp, is the current president of the European Society for Textual Scholarship. He edited Beckett's Company (2009) and is the author of Textual Awareness (2004), Manuscript Genetics, Joyce's Know-How, Beckett's Nohow (2008) and the first volume (2011) of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.

Mark Nixon is Reader in Modern Literature at the University of Reading, where he is also Director of the Beckett International Foundation. He has published widely on Samuel Beckett's work, is an editor of Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Beckett Studies, and co-director of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.