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Category: Samuel Beckett

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Summertime and the Library was … busy!

At the beginning of the new term we reflect on a hectic summer which kicked off with the visit of Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama on 17 June; a special exhibition on Obama family history was on display for the occasion. Also in June, Bernard Meehan, Keeper of Manuscripts spoke about the Book of Kells as part of the Derry/Londonderry City of Culture events and also delivered a lecture at the Hay Literary Festival held in Kells on 28 June.

M&ARL staff have worked on a number of temporary exhibitions timed to coincide with events within Trinity College Dublin over the summer. The Book of Kings: Middle Eastern Manuscripts in the Library exhibition accompanied the Middle East Library Committee (UK) meeting on 25 June. The Transmitting the Anglo-Saxon Past exhibition was displayed to coincide with The International Society of Anglo-Saxonists Conference from the 29 July to 2 August. The exhibition What Price the Children? The work of Dorothy Price among the Dublin Poor, staged to mark the centenary of the Dublin Lockout, is currently on view in the Long Room. These are also available as online exhibitions.

The Library has an on-going arrangement in relation to the annual Samuel Beckett Summer School run by the Department of Drama Film and Music. As well as curating an exhibition specifically to tie in with the School, M&ARL hosted one of the School’s teaching sessions to permit attendees to have access to original Beckett literary material.

Samuel Beckett Summer School 2013
Samuel Beckett Summer School 2013

Another regular event was the return of the annual Irish Harp Summer School. The Library is home to two early examples of the traditional Irish harp: the so-called ‘Brian Boru Harp’, which is on permanent display in the Long Room, and the less well-known Castle Otway Harp.

Irish Harp Summer School 2013
Irish Harp Summer School 2013 viewing the Castle Otway Harp

Further classes held during the summer included a talk for Trinity College Library colleagues on the surprising variety of objects within the M&ARL collection.

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Jane Maxwell (M&ARL) with Daniel O’Connell’s top hat
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A bullet which penetrated the roof of the Old Library during the 1916 Easter Rising

We are always delighted to hear about publications using M&ARL collections. One such author, historian Gill Morris from Tasmania, visited the Library on 6 August to present us with a copy of her book on the Revd Dr William Henry Browne, A Trinity College graduate, who left Cork for Van Diemen’s Land, Tasmania in 1828.

Gill Morris and Aisling Lockhart (M&ARL)
Gill Morris and Aisling Lockhart (M&ARL)

It is also not unusual to see M&ARL manuscripts featured on TV and earlier this summer the BBC filmed the 1641 depositions for inclusion in The Stuarts which should air at the end of this year.

All of this outreach activity continued smoothly despite the fact that the summertime tends to be the busiest time for M&ARL. Add to that a major refurbishment of the Reading Room during July and August and it all made for a hectic summer.

Estelle Gittins

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Waiting for Murphy

Beckett rear view

We admit to an oh-so-brief, and unworthy, frisson of covetousness at the news that Reading University has been successful in acquiring at auction the manuscript draft of Samuel Beckett’s novel Murphy. At the same time we whole-heartedly rejoice, as must all who are interested in Beckett research, that this manuscript is at long last available for study. Congratulations to Reading!

The Library has a close relationship with Beckett International Foundation at Reading.  In the 1990s the Beckett Estate (the author’s nephew Edward Beckett and niece Caroline Murphy) – very generously – donated to each institution half of a body of notes and diaries of Beckett’s; the institutions then provided one another with copies of the part of the gift each had received.

Trinity College Library is one of the Beckett world’s great destinations.  The Beckett collection in Trinity, based on a gift by the author himself in the 1960s, has been built up over the years by purchase, bequest and donation until its international repute is of the highest order. A key distinguishing characteristic is the presence of so much personal correspondence – the letters from Beckett to the poet Thomas MacGreevy, and those to the theatre director and translator Barbara Bray, are central to any biographical study of the Nobel Laureate, and contain much that gives insight into Beckett’s creative process and literary work.  There are also literary papers – including the highly significant draft of Imagination dead imagine;  there are photographs; notes taken by Beckett’s students in Trinity in the 1920s; College exercises; a prompt copy for the first performance of Godot;  there is even a little programme for a boxing tournament in which 10-year-old Beckett took part.

In the Long Room at the moment is a small exhibition drawn from the Library’s Beckett materials. This was installed to coincide with, and with the support of, the third annual Beckett Summer School to be run by the Department of Drama Film and Music in Trinity in August. The Library will be further involved in this venture by facilitating a class to be led by Dirk van Hulle, Professor of English Literature at the University of Antwerp’s Centre for Manuscript Genetics, and  Mark Nixon,  Reader in Modern Literature at the University of Reading and  Director of the Beckett International Foundation; both are co-directors of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project (BDMP) with which the Library also collaborated.

Jane Maxwell