Ninety years of Sam

THE Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Dr Thomas Mitchell, is today launching a major public appeal for the college's Samuel Beckett archive. The appeal coincides with the commemorations of the 90th anniversary (next Saturday) of the Nobel Prize winning author's birth, and will be attended by his nephew, Edward Beckett the renowned Beckett actor Barry McGovern and Michael Colgan, director of the Gate Theatre and producer of the acclaimed festival of Beckett's stage works, due to be revived in New York next August.

Beckett was, of course a Trinity graduate who also taught for a time there, and he maintained close links with his university through out his life. This association has been appropriately honoured in the establishment of the Samuel Beckett Centre, which is the college's drama department. So named in tribute to the author's 80th birthday in 1986, the centre is now established as an important part of theatre training in Ireland, and a site of significant scholarship in drama studies.

Trinity College's holdings of items by, and related to, Samuel Beckett are already among the finest in the world. They include four notebooks of drafts of his work which he presented to the library in 1969, including an abandoned scene from Endgame. There are also 223 letters written by Beckett to Thomas McGreevy from 1928 to 1966, which is the most important collection of his letters in any Library in the world. TCD library also holds important correspondence written by Beckett to the poet Nick Rawson between 1965 and 1989.

Waiting For Go dot is now universally acknowledged as a unique stage masterpiece, and the library acquired, at a Sotheby's auction in 1990, an important copy of a first edition used by Beckett as a working rehearsal copy. It contains many annotations made by him in the course of rehearsals, and introduces the celebrated exchange of insults between Vladimir and Estragon, ending with the killer taunt "critic".

Senior Dublin theatre goers will remember the legendary first Irish production of Waiting For Godot in the Pike Theatre in 1955. TCD library's most recent acquisition of important Beckett material is the archive of that ground breaking little theatre in Herbert Lane, presented by its surviving founder, Carolyn Swift. It includes letters from Beckett, and the version of Godot which he sent to the theatre. It is heavily annotated and corrected by the author, and provides fascinating insights into his choice of language and the implications of these choices, including his willingness to have the characters identified as Irish.

Starting from this strong base, TCD is now seeking to expand its collection of Beckett material by seeking items which are still in private hands. Anyone who has letters and other documents from the great dramatist is invited to donate them to the college, where they will join the magnificent collection already in the library. Trinity's international reputation for conservation and scholarship will ensure their survival for the use and enjoyment of future generations.