| 1906 |
SB born 13 April, youngest son of May & Bill Beckett, of “Cooldrinagh”, Foxrock, Co. Dublin. |
| 1920 |
SB enters Portora Royal School, Enniskillen,
Co. Fermanagh. |
| 1923 |
SB enters Trinity College Dublin [TCD];
studies Modern Languages (French & Italian). |
| 1926 |
SB plays cricket for TCD, touring in England
in 1926-27. |
| 1927 |
SB graduates from TCD with BA Hons (1st;
Gold Medal & £50 prize); visits Florence. |
| 1928 |
SB takes up lectureship at the École Normale
Superieure, Paris; meets Thomas MacGreevy and hence introduced to James Joyce;
visits Sinclair family relatives in Kassel; has unhappy affair with his
cousin Peggy there. |
| 1929 |
SB issues “Dante ... Bruno .. Vico
..... Joyce” - a defence of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake;
also a story, “Assumption” (in transition); contribs. “Che Sciagura” What a misfortune]” to TCD Miscellany; partial rift with Joyce over Lucia’s infatuation with him. |
| 1930 |
SB reading Descartes and reading Schopenhauer; commences learning German seriously; wins prize with “Whoroscope”, a poem; affair with Nancy
Cunard (the donor of the prize); takes up lectureship in French at TCD; experiences panic
attacks and catatonia; |
| 1931 |
SB publishes Proust; contrib. “Alba” to Dublin Magazine - based on his affair with Ethna MacCarthy;
troubled by boils. |
| 1932 |
SB resigns from TCD lecturership
in a letter sent from Paris; completes Dream of Fair to Middling Women (publ. 1992); moves back to to Dublin; contribs. “Dante
and the Lobster” to This Quarter (Putnam); subscribes
to “Poetry is Vertical” manifesto, in transition [journal]. |
| 1933 |
SB suffers the death of his father and of Peggy Sinclair
(from TB); completes More Pricks than Kicks and receives a publisher’s
offer; settles in London to attend the Tavistock Clinic for psycho-analysis. |
| 1934 |
More Pricks than Kicks appears; SB contribs. “Recent Irish Poetry” to The Bookman [jounral] under pseud. “Andrew
Belis”, severely criticising Irish poets or archaicism and “Cuchulanoid” tendencies. |
| 1935 |
SB attends a lecture by C.G. Jung at the Tavistock
Clinic; writes Murphy; issues Echoes Bones and Other Precipitates;
returns to Dublin and proceeds rapidly with Murphy. |
| 1936 |
SB travels in Germany, Sept. 1936-April 1937; returns to Dublin;
reads Descartes’ contemporary Geulincx in the TCD Library; experiences infatuation with Betty Stockton;
has an affair with Mary Howe [née Manning];
|
| 1937 |
SB returns to Dublin; gives evidence at
the Gogarty-Sinclair libel trial (called ‘the bawd and blasphemer
from Paris’ by prosecuting counsel); returns to Paris; Murphy is accepted by Routledge (London). |
| 1938 |
SB stabbed in the street by a Parisian pimp (‘for no reason at all’);
visited in hospital by Suzanne Descheveaux-Dumesnil, who was present at the scene; Murphy published. |
| 1940 |
Germany invades France; SB leaves Paris
and visits Joyce in “Free France”; returns to Paris and
joins Resistance cell ‘Gloria’. |
| 1942 |
‘Gloria’ betrayed by collaborator-priest;
SB flees with Suzanne to to Roussillon (Vaucluse); writes Watt in Roussillon. |
| 1945 |
SB visits family in Ireland; experiences
vision of ‘darkness’ and his future literary path (prob.
on Dun Laoghaire pier); SB commences work for Irish Red Cross as hospital
quarter-master at Saint-Lô. |
| 1946 |
SB composes the Nouvelles [“First
Love”, “The Expelled”, “The Calmative”,
“The End”); begins Mercier et Camier. |
| 1947 |
SB writes Molloy [in French], partly
in Dublin and partly in France. |
| 1948 |
SB writes Malone meurt [Malone
Dies], orig. as “L’absent”; commences Waiting for Godot. |
| 1949 |
SB rents room in farmhouse at Ussy-sur-Marne,
1949; begins l’Innommable [The Unnamable]. |
| 1950 |
SB suffers the death of May Beckett; submits Molloy to Jérôme Lindon (Edition de minuit). |
| 1951 |
Molloy and Malone Meurt [Malone
Dies] both published by Lindon’s Edition de minuit. |
| 1952 |
En attendant Godot [Waiting
for Godot] published by Lindon. |
| 1953 |
En attendant Godot staged at
19 Jan. 1953, Théâtre de Babylone, Paris [dir. Roger Blin]; l’Innommable published; embarks on love-affair with Pamela Mitchell; begins Textes pour rien (pub. 1955). |
| 1954 |
SB suffers the death of his elder br. Frank; Pamela
Mitchell moves to Paris to continue the affair with SB. |
| 1955 |
First English-language production of Waiting for Godot, simultaneously in London and Dublin; SB begins Fin de Partie [Endgame]. |
| 1956 |
SB writes All That Fall for radio; Waiting for Godot received disasterously in Miami, directed
by Alan Schneider. |
| 1957 |
Fin de partie staged London
(French version); Waiting for Godot staged at San Quentin Prison
(US). |
| 1958 |
English version of Endgame produced
with Krapp’s Last Tape in London; commences affair with
Barbara Bray in London. |
| 1959 |
SB writes Embers; begins Comment
C’est [How It Is] as “Pim”; receives D.
Litt. from TCD. |
| 1960 |
SB begins Happy Days [Oh les
beaux jours]; Krapp’s Last Tape premiered at Théâtre
Recamier (Paris) in trans. made by author with Pierre Leyris. |
| 1961 |
Comment c’est published; SB writes Words and Music and Cascando; Barbara Bray moves to
Paris and resumes affair with Beckett; SB formally marries Suzanne. |
| 1962 |
writes Play in English; Happy
Days produced in London. |
| 1963 |
Play produced in Germany as Spiel. |
| 1964 |
How It Is published (Grove Press,
NY); shoots Film in US with Buster Keaton (dir. Alan Schnieder]; Play staged in London. |
| 1965 |
SB writes Eh Joe and Come and
Go; publishes Imagination Dead Imagine; Film wins
Prix Filmcritica, Venice. |
| 1966 |
SB issues short fiction in single collection
as Tetes-Mortes [No’s Knife] in French and English; Film wins Special Jury Prize, Tours, 1966. |
| 1969 |
SB wins Nobel Prize for Literature; Breath staged in London as part of 0h! Calcutta, a review mounted
by Ken Tynan; builds home at Ussy-sur-Marne but retains Paris apartment. |
| 1970 |
SB issues Le Depeupleur [The
Lost Ones]; publication of Mercier et Camier and Premier
Amour [First Love]; first of two operations for glaucoma.
|
| 1972-1975 |
SB writes Not I; directs Billie
Whitelaw as ‘Mouth’ in same; issues That Time; SB writes Footfalls and That Time.
|
| 1976 |
SB issues For to End Yet Again and
Other Fizzles and All Strange Away; That Time and Footfalls staged in London with Not I; writes Ghost Trio.
|
| 1977 |
SB writes ... but the clouds, produced
by BBC as Shades with Ghost Trio, and Not I;
SB commences Company. |
| 1979 |
A Piece of Monologue staged;
SB issues Company. |
| 1980 |
SB writes Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu.
|
| 1981 |
SB issues Mal Vu Mal Dit [Ill Seen
Ill Said]; Quad issued as film for German Television; begins Worstward Ho. |
| 1982 |
SB writes Catastrophe (ded. to
Vaclev Havel) and Nacht und Traume, both produced on German
TV. |
| 1983 |
SB issues Westward Ho; writes What
Where. |
| 1984 |
SB elected “Saoi” of Aosdána (Republic
of Ireland Artist’s Guild), 1984. |
| 1986 |
SB begins Stirrings Still [completed
1987]. |
| 1987 |
SB diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease;
issues Stirrings Still; writes “What is the Word”. |
| 1989 |
SB predeceased by Suzanne, 17 July;
SB moves into maison de retraite [old people’s home],
Montparnasse; d. 22 Dec.; bur. Montparnasse. |