About the Author
Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1927. His made his poetry debut in 1930 with Whoroscope and followed it with essays and two novels before World War Two. He wrote one of his most famous plays, Waiting for Godot, in 1949 but it wasn’t published in English until 1954. Waiting for Godot brought Beckett international fame and firmly established him as a leading figure in the Theatre of the Absurd. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. Beckett continued to write prolifically for radio, TV and the theatre until his death in 1989.
About the Editor
Steven Connor is Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College London and the author of Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text and numerous essays and articles on Beckett.
Titles in the Samuel Beckett series
ENDGAME
Preface by Rónán McDonald
COMPANY/ILL SEEN ILL SAID/WORSTWARD HO/STRINGS STILL
Edited by Dirk Van Hulle
KRAPP’ LAST TAPE AND OTHER SHORTER PLAYS
Preface by S. E. Gontarski
MURPHY
Edited by J. C. C. Mays
WATT
Edited by C. J. Ackerley
Preface and Notes by Everett Frost
MOLLOY
Edited by Shane Weller
HOW IT IS
Edited by Édouard Magessa O’Reilly
THE EXPELLED/THE CALMATIVE/THE END & FIRST LOVE
Edited by Christopher Ricks
SELECTED POEMS, 1930–1989
Edited by David Wheatley
WAITING FOR GODOT
Preface by Mary Bryden
MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
Edited by Cassandra Nelson
malone dies
THE UNNAMABLE
Edited by Steven Connor
HAPPY DAYS
Preface by James Knowlson
TEXTS FOR NOTHING and Other Shorter Prose, 1950–1976
Edited by Mark Nixon
MERCIER AND CAMIER
Edited by Seán Kennedy
Copyright
Originally published as L’Innommable by Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1953
First published in the United States in 1958 by Grove Press. Collected in Three Novels (Grove Press 1958; Olympia Press 1959).
First published in Great Britain by Calder and Boyars in 1960
This edition first published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
© The Estate of Samuel Beckett, 2010
Preface © Steven Connor, 2010
The right of Samuel Beckett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The right of Steven Connor to be identified as editor of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–26692–0