Friday the 3rd
Information and Guide to Anglo-Irish writer Samuel Beckett created and maintained in Dublin, Ireland

1906 April 13 Samuel Barclay Beckett is born near Dublin, Ireland. 1919 He is sent off to the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh -- the same school Oscar Wilde attended. 1923 He begins his studies at Trinity College, Dublin. 1923 He graduates from Trinity College, Dublin, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. 1928 He moves to Paris. 1929 Beckett published his first work, a critical essay defending James Joyce's writings. 1930 "Whoroscope" wins first place in a competition for a poem about time. 1931 Beckett earns a Master of Arts degree from Trinity College. He publishes Proust, a collection of essays. 1934 He publishes his first novel, More Pricks than Kicks. 1937 He has a brief affair with the art collector Peggy Guggenheim. 1938 He publishes his second novel, Murphy. Beckett is hospitalized after being stabbed in the street by a man who approaches him asking for money. 1940 Unhappy with the German occupation of his adopted homeland, Beckett joins the French Resistance. 1942 Several members of Beckett's underground resistance group are arrested by the Gestapo, and he is forced to flee to the unoccupied zone. 1945 Beckett returns to Paris. 1951 He publishes two more novels -- Molloy and Malone Dies. 1953 January 5 Waiting for Godot premieres at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris. The "strange little play in which nothing happens" enjoys a run of 400 performances. He publishes two more novels -- Watt and The Unnamable. 1957 January 13 Beckett's radio play All That Fall is broadcast by the BBC. April 3 Endgame premieres at the Royal Court Theatre in London under the direction of Roger Blin. The play is well received and secures Beckett's position as a master dramatist. November 19 A company of actors from the San Francisco Actor's Workshop present Waiting for Godot at the San Quentin penitentiary for an audience of over fourteen hundred convicts. The production is a great success. 1958 October 28 Krapp's Last Tape premieres at the Royal Court Theatre in London. 1959 June 24 Embers, a radio play, is broadcast by the BBC. 1961 Beckett publishes How It Is, his last full-length prose work. March 25 In a secret civil ceremony, Beckett marries Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil. September 17 Happy Days premieres at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York. 1963 October 13 Cascando, a radio piece for music and voice, is broadcast by the ORTF. 1965 Beckett's film, entitled Film, is shown at the New York Film Festival. 1966 July 4 Eh Joe, a piece for television, is broadcast by the BBC. 1969 December 10 Beckett is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He refuses to attend the ceremony. 1973 January 16 Not I premieres at the Royal Court Theatre in London. 1976 May 20 That Time and Footfalls premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in London. 1977 April 17 Ghost Trio and ...but the clouds ..., two plays for television, are broadcast on BBC2. 1979 He publishes Company, a novella. 1981 Ohio Impromptu premieres at Ohio State University. 1982 He publishes another novella, Ill Seen, Ill Said. Catastrophe, written for Vaclav Havel, is performed at the Avignon Festival. December 16 Quad is broadcast on BBC2. 1983 June 15 What Where premieres at the Harold Clurman Theatre in New York. 1984 Beckett is elected Saoi of Aosdána. He publishes his final novella, Worstword Ho. 1989 July 17 His wife Suzanne dies. December 22 Samuel Beckett dies at the age of 83. Although he continues to write until his death, he says, in the end, that each word seems "an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness."