Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable

Samuel Beckett Trilogy

Samuel Beckett's mordant and exhilarating trilogy represents the high-water mark of Modernism. Written in the late 1940s at the same time as Waiting for Godot, the Absurdist drama which brought the Irish writer international fame, these three desolate monologues on the human condition are illuminated by flashes of black humour. The Everyman's Library edition, formerly available in the US only, is published in the UK for the first time.

Samuel Beckett is the greatest Irish novelist of the later twentieth century, and this trilogy of novels is his masterpiece -which makes it perhaps the outstanding literary work of our time. Because Beckett has a reputation for being difficult, even obscure, readers of the trilogy are bound to be struck not only by the verbal brilliance and inventiveness of the three novels, but also by their extraordinary humour which ranges from wit to broad comedy and even farce in a recognizably Irish way. Each story records an episode of human endurance in the face of metaphysical adversity with compassion and wisdom and each is a compelling narrative in itself in the great tradition of European fiction from Flaubert to Joyce.

First Love and Other Novellas

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During his career as a playwright and novelist, Samuel Beckett redefined the artistic possibilities of writing in both forms. He won the Prix Formentor in 1961 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

This new collection brings together First Love, The Calamative, The End and The Expelled; these four novellas are among the first major works of Beckett's decision to use French as his language of literary composition. Rich in verbal and situational humour, they offer a fascinating insight into many of the issues which preoccupied Beckett all his working life. As the first novella reveals, nobody writes with quite such cruel and unnervingly clever wit as Beckett...

Five BBC radio plays in binaural surround sound

Radio Beckett

Samuel Beckett captures the pathos and irony of modern life like no other dramatist. In the decade following the success of Waiting for Godot (1952), Beckett wrote some of his most absorbing work for radio, including the BBC's Third Programme. These plays are concerned with human isolation and the frailty of memory and communication, and they are suffused with a musicality that is particularly remarkable in this medium. With the exception of From an Abandoned Work, they can be heard in binaural surround sound, creating a particularly intimate audio experience which makes you feel as though you are in the theatre with the characters around you. 
 
 
This collection includes: From an Abandoned Work performed by Stephen Rea, Rough for Radio 1 starring Ron Cook and Monica Dolan, Rough for Radio 2 starring Stephen Dillane, Louise Brealey, Brian Protheroe and Nick Underwood, Words and Music starring Ian Mckellen and Carl Prekopp and Cascando starring Stanley Townsend and David Seddon. 
 
 
Matthew Sweet is the host of the R3 programme Sound of Cinema about film scores and their composers, and is a regular presenter of R3’s Night Waves. He introduces each of the plays and gives context to the productions.

Samuel Beckett

Books by Samuel Beckett

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