SB born 13 April, youngest son of May & Bill Beckett, of “Cooldrinagh”, Foxrock, Co. Dublin.

SB enters Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh.

SB enters Trinity College Dublin [TCD]; studies Modern Languages (French & Italian).

SB plays cricket for TCD, touring in England in 1926-27.

SB graduates from TCD with BA Hons (1st; Gold Medal & £50 prize); visits Florence.

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.

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; quarrels with Joyce over Lucia Joyce’s unrequited love for him.

SB reading Descartes and reading Schopenhauer; wins prize with “Whoroscope”, a poem; takes up lectureship in French at TCD.

SB publishes Proust; contrib. “Alba” to Dublin Magazine.

SB resigns from TCD lecturership, in letter 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].

death of father and a Peggy Sinclair (TB); completes More Pricks than Kicks and receives publisher’s offer; settles in London to attend Tavistock Clinic for psycho-analysis.

More Pricks than Kicks appears; contribs. “Recent Irish Poetry” to The Bookman [jounral] under pseud. “Andrew Belis”, severely criticising Irish poets.

SB Attends lecture by C.G. Jung at Tavistock Clinic; writes Murphy; issues Echoes Bones and Other Precipitates; returns to Dublin and proceeds rapidly with Murphy.

SB travels in Germany; returns to Dublin; reads Geulincx in TCD Library.

SB returns to Dublin; give evidence at the Gogarty-Sinclair libel trial (called ‘the bawd and blasphemer from Paris’ by prosecuting counsel); returns to Paris; Murphy accepted by Routledge (London).

Murphy published.

Germany invades France; SB leaves Paris and visits Joyce in “Free France”; returns to Paris and joins Resistance cell ‘Gloria’.

‘Gloria’ betrayed by collaborator-priest; SB flees with Suzanne to to Roussillon (Vaucluse); writes Watt in Roussillon.

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.

SB composes the Nouvelles [“First Love”, “The Expelled”, “The Calmative”, “The End”); begins Mercier et Camier.

writes Molloy [in French], partly in Dublin and partly in France.

writes Malone meurt [Malone Dies], orig. as “L’absent”; commences Waiting for Godot.

rents room in farmhouse at Ussy-sur-Marne, 1949; begins l’Innommable [The Unnamable].

death of May Beckett; Sb submits Molloy to Jérôme Lindon (Edition de minuit).

Molloy and Malone Meurt [Malone Dies] published (both by Jérôme Lindon’s Edition de minuit).

En attendant Godot [Waiting for Godot] published by Lindon.

En attendant Godot staged at 19 Jan. 1953, Théâtre de Babylone, Paris [dir. Roger Blin]; l’Innommable published; begins Textes pour rien (pub. 1955).

death of his elder br. Frank.

First English-language production of Waiting for Godot, simultaneously in London and Dublin; begins Fin de Partie [Endgame].

SB writes All That Fall for radio; Waiting for Godot received disasterously in Miami, directed by Alan Schneider.

Fin de partie staged London (French version); Waiting for Godot at San Quentin Prison (US).

English version of Endgame produced with Krapp’s Last Tape in London.

SB writes Embers; begins Comment C’est [How It Is] as “Pim”; receives D. Litt. from TCD.

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.

Comment c’est published; SB writes Words and Music and Cascando. SB formally marries Suzanne Bray.

writes Play in English; Happy Days produced in London.

Play produced in Germany as Spiel.

How It Is published (Grove Press, NY); shoots Film in US with Buster Keaton (dir. Alan Schnieder]; Play staged in London.

SB writes Eh Joe and Come and Go; publishes Imagination Dead Imagine; Film wins Prix Filmcritica, Venice.

SB issues short fiction in single collection as Tetes-Mortes [No’s Knife] in French and English; Film wins Special Jury Prize, Tours, 1966.

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.

SB issues Le Depeupleur [The Lost Ones]; publication of Mercier et Camier and Premier Amour [First Love]; first of two operations for glaucoma.

SB writes Not I; directs Billie Whitelaw as ‘Mouth’ in same; issues That Time; SB writes Footfalls and That Time.

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.

writes ... but the clouds, produced with Ghost Trio and Not I by BBC as Shades; commences Company.

A Piece of Monologue staged; SB issues Company.

SB writes Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu.

SB issues Mal Vu Mal Dit [Ill Seen Ill Said]; Quad issued as film for German Television; begins Worstward Ho.

SB writes Catastrophe (ded. to Vaclev Havel) and Nacht und Traume, both produced on German TV.

SB Issues Westward Ho; writes What Where.

SB elected “Saoi” of Aosdána (Republic of Ireland Artist’s Guild), 1984.

SB begins Stirrings Still [completed 1987].

SB diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease; issues Stirrings Still; writes “What is the Word”.

SB predeceased by Suzanne, 17 July; SB moves into maison de retraite [old people’s home], Montparnasse; d. 22 Dec.; bur. Montparnasse.

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