{"title":"Samuel Beckett","description":"\u003cp\u003eSamuel Beckett’s work explores the depths of human experience through a distinct blend of existential reflection and stark, often darkly comic prose. His novels and plays challenge conventional narrative and form, inviting readers into a world where meaning is elusive and silence speaks as powerfully as words.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the profound minimalism of \u003cem\u003eEndgame\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eHappy Days\u003c\/em\u003e to the introspective journeys in \u003cem\u003eMolloy\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Unnamable\u003c\/em\u003e, Beckett’s writing captures the absurdity and persistence of life with uncompromising honesty. This collection is essential for those drawn to innovative literary art and the complexities of modern existence.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"molloy-by-samuel-beckett-9780571386765","title":"Molloy","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe first of the three greatest novels by the era-defining Nobel laureate, reissued for a new generation.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eI am still alive then. That may come in useful.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMolloy\u003c\/em\u003e, a sordid, bedridden vagrant, recalls a long bicycle ride in search of his mother. He describes sucking on stones, falling in love, getting arrested, killing a dog. Moran, a private detective, sets out to look for Molloy. But as Moran's physical and mental state deteriorate, his narrative starts to mirror Molloy's in mysterious ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMolloy\u003c\/em\u003e is the first of the three great novels Samuel Beckett produced during his 'frenzy of writing' in the late 1940s. The others are \u003cem\u003eMalone Dies\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Unnamable\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46193458020588,"sku":"9780571386765","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780571386765.jpg?v=1739833635"},{"product_id":"the-unnamable-by-samuel-beckett-9780571386741","title":"The Unnamable","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe third of the three greatest novels by the era-defining Nobel laureate, reissued for a new generation.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eI can't go on, I'll go on.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Unnamable\u003c\/i\u003e is a voice. Is it curled up inside an urn, on the point of being born, or is it about to die? Haunted by visitors, it weeps. \u003ci\u003eThe Unnamable\u003c\/i\u003e sifts disjointed memories, grapples with the problem of existence, and ultimately perpetuates itself through an endless stream of fragmented words.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Unnamable\u003c\/i\u003e is the last of the three great novels Samuel Beckett produced during his 'frenzy of writing' in the late 1940s. The others are \u003ci\u003eMolloy\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMalone Dies\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46193458249964,"sku":"9780571386741","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780571386741.jpg?v=1739833568"},{"product_id":"malone-dies-by-samuel-beckett-9780571386758","title":"Malone Dies","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe second of the three greatest novels by the era-defining Nobel laureate, reissued for a new generation.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNothing is more real than nothing.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMalone, a decrepit old man, lies naked in his bed, scrawling bitter observations in an exercise book. He is fed on a bed-table, his chamber pot is emptied, he hooks items with his stick, he looks out of the window. He tells the story of a man, looked after by nurses, taken for an ill-fated picnic on an island in the sea. As his mind disintegrates, so does the novel...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMalone Dies\u003c\/em\u003e is the second of the three great novels Samuel Beckett produced during his 'frenzy of writing' in the late 1940s. The others are \u003cem\u003eMolloy\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Unnamable\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46193458381036,"sku":"9780571386758","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780571386758.jpg?v=1739833549"},{"product_id":"happy-days-by-samuel-beckett-9780571244577","title":"Happy Days","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHappy Days\u003c\/em\u003e was written in 1960 and first produced in London at the Royal Court Theatre in November 1962.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWINNIE: [ . . .] Well anyway - this man Shower - or Cooker - no matter - and the woman - hand in hand - in the other hands bags - kind of big brown grips - standing there gaping at me - What's she doing? he says - What's the idea? he says - stuck up to her diddies in the bleeding ground - coarse fellow - What does it mean? he says - What's it meant to mean? - and so on - lot more stuff like that - usual drivel - Do you hear me? He says - I do, she says, God help me - What do you mean, he says, God help you? (stops filing nails, raises head, gazes front.) And you, she says, what's the idea of you, she says, what are you meant to mean?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46530959147244,"sku":"9780571244577","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10121883482391.jpg?v=1749267750"},{"product_id":"waiting-for-godot-by-samuel-beckett-9780571229116","title":"Waiting for Godot","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis line from the play was adopted by Jean Anouilh to characterise the first production of \u003ci\u003eWaiting for Godot\u003c\/i\u003e at the Theatre de Babylone in 1953. He went on to predict that the play would, in time, represent the most important premiere to be staged in Paris for forty years. Nobody acquainted with Beckett's masterly black comedy would now question this prescient recognition of a classic of twentieth-century literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eGo and see \u003ci\u003eWaiting for Godot\u003c\/i\u003e. At the worst you will discover a curiosity, a four-leaved clover, a black tulip; at the best, something that will securely lodge in the corner of your mind for as long as you live.\u003c\/i\u003e - Harold Hobson, \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e, 1955\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46534299156716,"sku":"9780571229116","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9967273482391.jpg?v=1749423362"},{"product_id":"the-end-by-samuel-beckett-9780241338971","title":"The End","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe End\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'They didn't seem to take much interest in my private parts which to tell the truth were nothing to write home about, I didn't take much interest in them myself.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the master of the absurd, these two stories of an unnamed vagrant contending with decay and death combine bleakness with the blackest of humour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46553322258668,"sku":"9780241338971","price":6.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/5c925180652835a12ed2563a9bec51a5.jpg?v=1789340048"},{"product_id":"dante-and-the-lobster-by-samuel-beckett-9780571351800","title":"Dante and the Lobster","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWell, thought Belacqua, it's a quick death, God help us all.\u003cbr\u003eIt is not.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDante and the Lobster\u003c\/em\u003e is the first of the linked short stories in Samuel Beckett's first book, \u003cem\u003eMore Pricks Than Kicks\u003c\/em\u003e. Published in 1934, its style was recognisably indebted to that of his mentor, James Joyce, and crammed with linguistic texture and allusion that Beckett later shed. The book baffled many critics and sold so few copies that several batches were pulped.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDecades later, this story was hailed as the Nobel Prize-winner's earliest important work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46711204970732,"sku":"9780571351800","price":16.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11194113482391.jpg?v=1754199571"},{"product_id":"echos-bones-by-samuel-beckett-9780571246380","title":"Echo's Bones","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEcho's Bones\u003c\/em\u003e was intended by Samuel Beckett to form the 'recessional' or end-piece of his early collection of interrelated stories, \u003cem\u003eMore Pricks Than Kicks\u003c\/em\u003e, published in 1934. The story was written at the request of the publisher, but was held back from inclusion in the published volume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEcho's Bones\u003c\/em\u003e has remained unpublished to this day, and the present edition will situate the work in terms of its biographical context, its intertextual references, and as a vital link in the evolution of Beckett's early work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe editor, Mark Nixon, is director of the Beckett International Foundation at the University of Reading.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46711333748972,"sku":"9780571246380","price":55.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10139913482391.jpg?v=1754212457"},{"product_id":"endgame-by-samuel-beckett-9780571243730","title":"Endgame","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOriginally written in French and translated into English by Beckett, \u003cem\u003eEndgame\u003c\/em\u003e was given its first London performance at the Royal Court Theatre in 1957.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46711351869676,"sku":"9780571243730","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10113413482391.jpg?v=1754215024"},{"product_id":"murphy-by-samuel-beckett-9780571244584","title":"Murphy","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMurphy\u003c\/em\u003e, Samuel Beckett's first novel, was published in 1938. Its work-shy eponymous hero, adrift in London, realises that desire can never be satisfied and withdraws from life, in search of stupor. Murphy's lovestruck fiancée Celia tries with tragic pathos to draw him back, but her attempts are doomed to failure. Murphy's friends and familiars are simulacra of Murphy, fragmented and incomplete.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut Beckett's achievement lies in the brilliantly original language used to communicate this vision of isolation and misunderstanding. The combination of particularity and absurdity gives Murphy's world its painful definition, but the sheer comic energy of Beckett's prose releases characters and readers alike into exuberance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46712948588780,"sku":"9780571244584","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10121953482391.jpg?v=1754310600"},{"product_id":"molloy-by-samuel-beckett-9780571243716","title":"Molloy","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMolloy\u003c\/em\u003e is Samuel Beckett's best-known novel and his first published work to be written in French, ushering in a period of concentrated creativity in the late 1940s. This period included the companion novels \u003cem\u003eMalone Dies\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Unnamable\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe narrative of Molloy, old and ill, remembering and forgetting, scarcely human, begets a parallel tale of the spinsterish Moran, a private detective sent in search of him. Moran's own deterioration during the quest joins in with the catalogue of Molloy's woes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMolloy\u003c\/em\u003e brings a world into existence with finicking certainties, at the tip of whoever is holding the pencil, and trades larger uncertainties with the reader.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThen I went back into the house and wrote, It was midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46844660416748,"sku":"9780571243716","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10113273482391.jpg?v=1758850307"},{"product_id":"waiting-for-godot-by-samuel-beckett-9780571244591","title":"Waiting for Godot","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSubtitled \u003cem\u003e'A tragicomedy in two Acts'\u003c\/em\u003e, and famously described by the Irish critic Vivien Mercier as a play in which 'nothing happens, twice', \u003cem\u003eEn attendant Godot\u003c\/em\u003e was first performed at the Theatre de Babylone in Paris in 1953. It was translated into English by Samuel Beckett, and \u003cem\u003eWaiting for Godot\u003c\/em\u003e opened at the Arts Theatre in London in 1955.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47420757082348,"sku":"9780571244591","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/61qN68HfQvL._SL1500.jpg?v=1774394948"},{"product_id":"dream-of-fair-to-middling-women-by-samuel-beckett-9780571358052","title":"Dream of Fair to Middling Women","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeckett's first 'literary landmark' (\u003ci\u003eSt Petersburg Times\u003c\/i\u003e) is a wonderfully savoury introduction to the Nobel Prize-winning author. Written in 1932, when the twenty-six-year-old Beckett was struggling to make ends meet, the novel offers a rare and revealing portrait of the artist as a young man.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen submitted to several publishers, all of them found it too literary, too scandalous or too risky; it was only published posthumously in 1992. As the story begins, Belacqua—a young version of Molloy, whose love is divided between two women, Smeraldina-Rima and the little Alba—'wrestles with his lusts and learning across vocabularies and continents, before a final \"relapse into Dublin\"' (\u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYouthfully exuberant and Joycean in tone, \u003ci\u003eDream of Fair to Middling Women\u003c\/i\u003e is a work of extraordinary virtuosity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47596297912556,"sku":"9780571358052","price":55.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780571358052-dream-of-fair-to-middling-women.jpg?v=1777919897"},{"product_id":"the-complete-dramatic-works-of-samuel-beckett-by-samuel-beckett-9780571229154","title":"The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe present volume gathers all of Beckett's texts for theatre, from 1955 to 1984. 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