Beckett manuscript sells for £1m in UK
Beckett’s manuscript sold at an auction in London on Wednesday.
Irish-born Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett’s manuscript was sold for almost £1 million at an auction in London on Wednesday. The manuscript, which had been held privately, was sold to a British university.
The handwritten manuscript of Beckett’s first novel Murphy in six exercise books, written between August 1935 and June 1936, was sold for £962,500 to the University of Reading at a Sotheby’s auction in London.
Beckett, who wrote in both English and French, lived in Paris for most of his adult life. Beckett, whose play Waiting for Godot is still very popular, was undergoing psychoanalysis when he wrote the manuscript of his first novel, initially known as Sasha Murphy. The writer-playwright-poet, who died in 1989 in France, also drew astrological symbols and musical notations in the notebooks.
The manuscript is heavily revised throughout, and as Sotheby’s described it, “the hundreds of cancellations and revisions providing an eloquent witness to Beckett’s struggle to give form to his artistic vision.”
The novel, set in London and Dublin, is about Murphy’s attempts to find peace in the nothingness of the “little world” of the mind without intrusion from the outside world. The notebooks of the manuscript also include doodles and recognisable portraits of James Joyce and Charlie Chaplin and many self-portraits. The manuscript, which was the centrepiece of Sotheby’s sale of English literature, history, children’s books and illustrations, had been estimated to realise £800,000 — £1.2 million.
“Interest in this remarkable piece of literary history has been truly global. It is unquestionably the most important manuscript of a complete novel by a modern British or Irish writer to appear at auction for many decades. The notebooks contain almost infinite riches for all those — whether scholars or collectors — interested in this most profound of modern writers, who more than anyone else, perhaps, captures the essence of modern man. The manuscript is capable of redefining Beckett studies for many years to come,” Peter Selley, Sotheby’s senior specialist in books and manuscripts said.
The University of Reading bought the manuscript to “continue to fund access to knowledge and the best resources for researchers and students.”
“The acquisition of Murphy will provide unparalleled opportunities to learn more about one of the greatest writers in living memory, if not all time,” Sir David Bell, vice-chancellor of the University of Reading, said.
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