Beckett Digital Library (815 items) > sorted by the extant + virtual student library > "S" (40 items)
de Sanctis, Francesco : Storia della letteratura italiana, Vol. 2 Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1925 ed. )Reading traces on: 23*, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185*, 218, 225, 247, 249, 261, 264, 267, 274, 275, 276, 277, 353, 354*, 355, 356, 357*. (*: page contains marginalia) Notes:
- Inscription of second volume has not been scanned — the paper is creased and crumpled and the inscription hardly legible; both volumes are also very brittle, and on the verge of falling apart.
- Two National Library slips inserted in volume 2 page 222, both for books on Aubanal, one by Welter, the other by Legré. No date given. Read: by October 1927.For the Moderatorship examination, Beckett was free to choose any of the histories on Italian literature by de Sanctis, Hauvette or Scherillo. His copy of de Sanctis' Storia was bought in May 1927 in Florence. Source:
TCD College Calendar
Scève, Maurice : Délie: Object de plus haulte vertu Paris: Hachette, 1916 ed. )Reading traces on: vii, viii, ix, x, xii, xiii, xiv, xix, xvi, xx, xxi*, xxii, xxiii, xxiv, xxix*, xxv, xxvi, xxvii*, xxxiii, xxxv, xxxvi, xxxviv, 3*, 5*, 8*, 11*, 13*, 16*, 17*, 18*, 20*, 23*, 24*, 38*, 47*, 48*, 50*, 57*, 64*, 67*, 69*, 75*, 76*, 79*, 81*, 82*, 83*, 84*, 85*, 97*, 99*, 109*, 110*, 113*, 114*, 124*, 140*, 146*, 147*, 148*, 149*, 152*, 154*, 157, 159, 160*, 171*, 175*, 176*, 177, 182*, 183*, 196, 197, 210*, 211*, 216*, 217*, 220*, 222*, 226*, 236*, 237, 244*, 247*, 258*, 266*, 267*, 270*, 280, 284*, 303*, 305*. (*: page contains marginalia) Read: by January 1926.This book now belongs to the private collection of Avigdor Arikha and Anne Atik. Source:
TCD College Calendar
V
Schopenhauer, Arthur : The World as Will and Idea London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, [1883-1886] translation )Notes: Chapter on music Read: August 1930.The edition of Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung that Beckett read in the summer of 1930, to prepare for his essay on Marcel Proust, has been identified as the English translation by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp (Ackerley and Gontarski, The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett , p. 510). In a letter to Thomas MacGreevy of 25 August 1930 Beckett mentioned reading a specific chapter in Schopenhauer's book: 'His chapter in Will & Representation on music is amusing & applies to P., who certainly read it [(]It is alluded to incidentally in A. La R.)' (LSB I 43). Although Beckett referred to the translation as 'Will & Representation' in his letter, not 'Will and Idea' as the book was actually called, he must have been reading the Haldane and Kemp translation, since no other English version was available until E. F. J. Payne's 1958 translation, entitled 'The World as Will and Representation'. In their Translator's Preface, Haldane and Kemp explained that '"Vorstellung" has been rendered by "idea," in preference to "representation," which is neither accurate, intelligible, nor elegant'. Apparently, Beckett - and later E. F. J. Payne - disagreed. Pilling has pinpointed Schopenhauer's chapter on music as 'the fifty-second chapter of volume i [...] with account taken also of chapter 39 of volume ii ("On the Metaphysics of Music")' (John Pilling, 'Proust and Schopenhauer: Music and Shadows', in Samuel Beckett and Music , ed. Mary Bryden, p. 173). Seven years later, in a letter to Thomas MacGreevy of 21 September 1937, Beckett stated that the only thing he could read during his recent illness was Schopenhauer because he is 'a philosopher that can be read like a poet' (LSB I 550). Here he was probably referring to the German Sämtliche Werke in six volumes, bought on his trek through Germany in 1936 and 1937. Contrary to the English translation by Haldane and Kemp, this German edition of Schopenhauer's works has been preserved in Beckett's personal library. Source:
The Letters of Samuel Beckett , vol. I, 1929-1940, p. 43.
Shakespeare, William : Macbeth Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922 ed. )Inscription: 'm / S. B. Beckett. / Portora. / VIth Form / September 1922' Reading traces on: tp1*, 6*, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19*, 21, 23*, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 34, 37*, 38*, 41, 42, 43, 46, 48, 51, 52*, 56, 57, 59, 60, 67, 68, 72, 73*, 78, backflyleafverso*, insidebackcover. (*: page contains marginalia) Read: September 1922.The inscription by Beckett metions that he was at Portora Royal School when he acquired this book.
Shakespeare, William : The Works of William Shakspeare London / New York : Frederick Warne and Co, n.d. The "Universal" Edition Reading traces on: 225, 808, 811, 821, 823, 946insert*, 1087*. (*: page contains marginalia) Notes: scrap of a diary inserted page 946-47 (Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, scenes 3 and 4): 'Avigdor PLM 11 (photo) / Briquets / foie / whiskey'
We owe a debt of gratitude to James Little for offering a correction to the title. Beckett seems to allude to King Lear on [page 16v of the 'Kilcool' Notebook, MS-TCD-4664](noti:MS-TCD-4664,16v[AS1_zone49]). He quotes from the The Tempest on [page 02r of the third typescript of ](noti:MS-UoR-1227-7-12-4,02r[ET3_zone15])Not I , MS-UoR-1227-7-12-4. Read: by January 1924 (Henry V), by October 1923 (The Merchant of Venice), by January 1924 (A Midsummer Night's Dream), by January 1925 (The Merchant of Venice), by May 1924 (Julius Caesar), March 1931(Julius Caesar), by May 1924 (Coriolanus), by October 1924 (As You Like It), by October 1924 (Twelfth Night), by January 1925 (The Tempest), November 1928 (The Tempest), by May 1925 (Richard III), by May 1925 (Romeo and Juliet), March 1931 (Romeo and Juliet), by October 1925 (Macbeth, by October 1925 (Hamlet), March 1931 (Anthony and Cleopatra), March 1931 (Othello), March 1931 (Richard II), March 1931 (Troilus and Cressida).Source:
TCD College Calendar
Spenser, Edmund : The Faerie Queene, Vol. II Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922 ed. )Inscription: 'S. Beckett / Trinity College, Dublin / 1924' Reading traces on: 53, 99, 127*, 129*, 145*, 199*, insertrecto*, insertverso*. (*: page contains marginalia) Notes: The BDMP owes a debt of gratitude to Terence Killeen for drawing our attention to these two volumes and for making them available to the project. Read: by May 1924.Source:
TCD College Calendar
Stendhal, [Henri Beyle] : Le Rouge et le noir Paris: Garnier, 1925 Inscription: 'S.B. Beckett Dublin November 1926' Read: by October 1927, December 1931.Stendhal's Le Rouge et le noir , which Beckett had bought in November 1926, features on the list for the Moderatorship exam (Pilling 2006, 13). Beckett mentioned re-reading Le Rouge et le noir in a letter dated 20 December 1931 (LSB I 100). Sources:
TCD College Calendar
John Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology , p. 13.
The Letters of Samuel Beckett , vol. I, 1929-1940, p. 100.
