“Getting known”: A Review of Publishing Samuel Beckett

Publishing Samuel Beckett is firmly entrenched in an emerging tradition that seeks to challenge the popular image of Samuel Beckett as a recluse who left the sordid details of publishing, advertising, and worst of all (for modernists) money to his friends and business associates. These seventeen essays systematically illustrate not only Beckett’s eagerness (sometimes bordering on desperation) to be published in his early days as a writer, but also the unique relationships that he formed with his various publishers, and most notably the fierce loyalty that he inspired in them. Beginning with Beckett’s initial struggles to find a publisher in the 1930s—a moment when he was still laboring in Joyce’s shadow—and concluding with his position in the marketplace today—when first editions of his works may fetch as much as £62,500—this collection offers a comprehensive view of Beckett’s diverse forms of engagement with the literary marketplace, focusing as much on the biographies of his publishers, literary agents, and friends as on Beckett himself.