Detailed Description

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 quite an exceptional sourcebook, indispensable to anyone seeking to understand Beckett’s development.