Renowned Irish writer Samuel Beckett’s draft of his first published novel Murphy has fetched USD 1.4 million at Sotheby’s auction house in London.
The auctioned manuscript contains the heavily reworked text of the novel as well as notes, doodles and sketches of figures such as James Joyce and Charlie Chaplin.
Written in 1935-36, the six-notebook draft was sold to Britain’s University of Reading. The deal was arranged by a team led by Beckett’s friend and biographer James Knowlson.
The manuscript was first sold in 1968 to a private collector, who kept it until his death last year.
“It’s amazingly important because Murphy is a great novel and it’s so different to the final edition. It has a third more material. It’s an absolutely intimate exposure of Beckett’s creative methods,” the rare book dealer Rick Gekosk commented.
Originally called Sasha Murphy, the novel is unique among Beckett’s works that narrates the story of a young Irishman, who tries to follow his dreams in the city.
Å“Acquiring the manuscript will provide unparalleled opportunities to learn more about one of the greatest writers in living memory, if not all time,” said the university’s vice chancellor David Bell.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) was a novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet whose works offer a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature.
Regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Republished with permission from: Press TV