Tuesday the 7th
Information and Guide to Anglo-Irish writer Samuel Beckett created and maintained in Dublin, Ireland
The Beckett International Foundation
Reading University Library, Whiteknights, PO Box 223, Reading, RG6 6AE United Kingdom
Telephone: (0118) 378 8776 Fax: (0118) 378 2335

What is the Foundation?

The Beckett International Foundation was set up as a charitable trust in 1988, with the University of Reading as Trustee.  Housed in Reading University Library, the Foundation administers and coordinates the academic and bibliographical  resources of the Beckett Collection, now the largest and most extensive collection of Beckett materials in the world.

The Foundation is uniquely fortunate in that almost all of its manuscript resources were donated by Samuel Beckett himself, some of them being inscribed by the author to this effect.  Others have been donated by Beckett.s family and friends, by publishers or researchers.

How can you help the Foundation?

Having no income of its own, the Foundation invites authors and publishers to send complimentary copies of books and offprints.  These are added swiftly to the Beckett Collection, with the names of all donors being recorded and, where possible, inscribed on the article.

The Foundation is also deeply grateful for monetary donations, to facilitate further acquisitions of material, and to ensure that services to its many visitors and readers can be maintained.  Cheques and covenants should be made payable to University of Reading: The Beckett International Foundation.  All such donations are individually acknowledged, and potential donors are most welcome to visit the Foundation.

Companies, organisations, and scholars interested in sponsoring activities at the Foundation, suggesting institutional links, joint funding applications, etc., are warmly invited to contact Dr Ronan McDonald to discuss these proposals in confidence.

Patrons of the Foundation

  • Edward Albee
  • Avigdor Arikha
  • Edward Beckett
  • Louis le Brocquy
  • John Calder
  • Dr J.M. Coetzee
  • Professor Ruby Cohn
  • Matthew Evans
  • Brian Friel
  • Grey Gowrie
  • Sir Peter Hall CBE
  • Seamus Heaney
  • Israel Horovitz
  • Anthony Minghella
  • Caroline (Beckett) Murphy
  • Harold Pinter CBE
  • Barney Rosset
  • Kevin Spacey
  • Tom Stoppard CBE
  • Erika Tophoven
  • Ulla Unseld-Berkéwicz
  • Billie Whitelaw CBE

The Foundation was also supported by the late Sir Joseph Gold, the late Dorothy Tutin CBE, the late Professor Martin Esslin OBE, the late Jerome Lindon, the late Jocelyn Herbert ARCA, the late Dr Siegfried Unseld, and Charles Monteith.

Contacting the Foundation

The mailing address for the Foundation is:

Beckett International Foundation,
Reading University Library,
Whiteknights,
PO Box 223,
Reading,
RG6 6AE
United Kingdom

Please telephone: (0118) 378 8776 or Fax: (0118) 378 6336

To contact a specific member of the Foundation please telephone the University switchboard (0118) 987 5123 and ask for the appropriate extension given below:

Director:

Dr Ronan McDonald BA, MA, MStud, DPhil, ILTM (extn 7365)
email: r.d.a.mcdonald@rdg.ac.uk

Founder and Adviser:

Professor James Knowlson BA, DipEd, PhD
email: j.r.knowlson@rdg.ac.uk

Research Officer:

Dr Julian Garforth BA, GCD, PhD (extn 8776)
email: j.a.garforth@rdg.ac.uk

University Archivist (all collections):

Michael Bott MA, DipLib (extn 8776)
email: g.m.c.bott@rdg.ac.uk

Activities and events

Reading University offers a vibrant research culture for anyone interested in Beckett Studies.  Postgraduates wishing to study Beckett.s work are invited to visit or contact the University, where teaching and supervision is available from Beckett specialists.  Beckett.s work features on undergraduate and postgraduate courses offered by the Department of French Studies, School of English and American Literature, and Department of Film, Theatre and Television.

From time to time, special events focused upon the work of Samuel Beckett take place at the University.  In November 1998, over 5000 pounds was raised for cancer charities at a Beckett Gala evening in which a host of Beckett actors gave their services free of charge.

Regular Saturday Research Seminars have been held up to now, once or twice a year.  These Seminars consist of four research papers, given and discussed both by established scholars and by more junior faculty.

Publications

The following publications based upon the Reading Beckett Collection are available from the Foundation.

Beckett at Reading : catalogue of the Beckett manuscript collection at the University of Reading / [compiled by] Mary Bryden, Julian Garforth, Peter Mills. Whiteknights Press and the Beckett International Foundation, 1998.  (xvii, 197 pages)

This new catalogue from the Beckett International Foundation provides full and detailed descriptions of manuscripts relating to over 100 works of prose, drama and poetry, the earliest dating from the mid-1930s, the latest from the early 1980s. It is a catalogue compiled by scholars for scholars and significantly enlarges upon the 1978 catalogue and its subsequent supplements.

Paperback  ISBN 0 7049 1321 6 15.00 pounds
Casebound ISBN 0 7049 1320 8 25.00 pounds  

Please add postage and packing as follows:

Paperback Casebound
U.K. 2.00 pounds 2.00 pounds
Europe 3.00 pounds 3.00 pounds
Rest of the world 5.00 pounds 7.00 pounds

Cheques must be in pounds sterling and made payable to:

'University of Reading: Beckett International Foundation'

Beckett.s Dream Notebook / edited, annotated, and with an introductory essay by John Pilling. Beckett International Foundation, 1999. (xxiv, 173 pages)

Between 1930 and 1932 Beckett entered almost 1200 items in a hardbacked notebook which he used on the way to writing his first full-length novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, published posthumously in 1992. The range of references is unusually wide even for Beckett, including a life of Napoleon, studies of Chinese music and civilization, a book on astronomy, classics of religious thought and what booksellers used to call .curiosa.. The jottings help to explain much which has previously been considered obscure or not worthy of comment in Beckett.s writings before Murphy, with some items even pointing forward to En attendant Godot and the .Trilogy. and as late as Not I.

No other notebook contains so much raw material to be used (or abused) as Beckett saw fit, and not even James Knowlson.s biography brings us quite so close to the mind and creative practices of the young Beckett. Beckett.s .Dream. Notebook is a quite exceptional sourcebook, indispensable to anyone seeking to understand Beckett.s development.

This is the first such notebook to be edited and annotated, permission for publication having been generously granted by the Beckett Estate.  

Casebound ISBN 0 7049 1335 6 25.00 pounds   

Please add postage and packing as follows:  

U.K. 2.00 pounds
Europe 3.00 pounds
Rest of the world 7.00 pounds

The Ideal core of the onion: Reading Beckett archives / edited by John Pilling and Mary Bryden. Beckett International Foundation, 1992. (vii, 151 pages) Contents:

From a (W)horoscope to Murphy / John Pilling
Beckett.s Human wishes / Lionel Kelly
Figures of Golgotha: Beckett.s pinioned people / Mary Bryden
On first looking into Beckett.s The Voice / P.J. Murphy
Between theatre and theory: Long observation of the ray / Steven Connor
Worstward ho and the end(s) of representation / Andrew Renton
Stirrings still: the disembodiment of Western tradition / Paul Davies

Paperback  ISBN 0 7049 0724 0  Out of print
Casebound ISBN 0 7049 0723 2  12 pounds   

Please add postage and packing as follows:

U.K. 2.00 pounds
Europe 3.00 pounds
Rest of the world 5.00 pounds

Cheques must be in pounds sterling and made payable to:

'University of Reading: Beckett International Foundation'

The Samuel Beckett collection : a catalogue. Beckett International Foundation, 1978. (81 pages)

ISBN 0 7049 0487 X 5.00 pounds (inclusive of p&p)
Catalogue + supplements to date 20.00 pounds (inclusive of p&p)

Cheques must be in pounds sterling and made payable to:

'University of Reading: Beckett International Foundation'

Quotation and publishing rights

Following the death of Samuel Beckett's literary executor, Monsieur Jérôme Lindon, permissions for the use of Samuel Beckett's work should be sought as follows:

  • Permission to quote from published works must be obtained as before from the relevant publisher or agent.
  • Permission to quote from unpublished work, material held in archives, notebooks, letters, poems and translations previously published in magazines, must now be obtained from the Estate of Samuel Beckett (see below for contact details).
  • Any permission for the use of Samuel Beckett's work that would formerly have been addressed to his literary executor must now be addressed to the Estate.

    Contact details for the Estate of Samuel Beckett:

    The Estate of Samuel Beckett
    c/o Curtis Brown
    Haymarket House
    28/29 Haymarket
    London
    SW1Y 4SP
    United Kingdom

    Fax: +44 (020) 7396 0110
    Email: beckettestate@curtisbrown.co.uk