Dear Mr. Beckett: Letters from the Publisher: The Samuel Beckett File: Correspondence, Interviews, Photos

by Barney Rosset, Lois Oppenheim (Editor)

Overview

(Book). Preface by Paul Auster * Foreword by Edward Beckett Edited by Lois Oppenheim * Curated by Astrid Myers Rosset "You know, Barney, I think my writing days are over," Beckett writes in 1954 when most of his output was still ahead of him. And later, "Sick of all this old vomit and despair more and more of ever being able to puke again. In a world where writers switch publishers at the first shake of a martini pitcher, our trans-Atlantic communications seemed to float on a sea of tranquility and trust." from Dear Mr. Beckett Through letters, contracts, photos, interviews, speeches, reviews and memorabilia most of which has never before been made public a rare personal and professional friendship unfolds between these two oddly shy daredevils; through their embrace, they shifted and turned the tide of literature in America. Among the many never before published entries: * Beckett's discussion about acting with his long time director, Alan Schneider, as they huddled with Barney Rosset in his East Hampton quonset hut about their upcoming rehearsal with Buster Keaton. * Susan Sontag correspondence on her Godot production in Sarajevo. * The comprehensive Endgame file about the controversial production in Cambridge Mass which proceeded against Beckett's wishes. * Interviews with Eugene Ionesco and Alain Robbe-Grillet about Beckett and Rosset and the Absurdists. * Estelle Parsons correspondence with Beckett about the actress's proposal to perform Godot with Shelley Winters on Broadway. * Comprehensive file on the genesis and development of Beckett's Rockaby with Billie Whitelaw. * Comprehensive file on Rosset's termination from Grove, the press he founded and championed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623160708
Publisher:	Opus Books
Publication date:	10/01/2016
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 14

Foreword Edward Beckett 17

Preface Paul Auster 19

Introduction Lois Oppenheim 25

Editor's Note 37

Dramatis Personae 38

Prologue 47

Act 1 The Early Letters 63

Selected Letters 1955-1964

Contracts Between Grove Press and Les Editions De Minuit

Howard Fertig in Village Voice

Kenneth Rexroth in the Nation

Entr'acte 147

Interview with Barney Rosset and John Calder

Interview with Barney Rosset on his Beginnings at Grove

Act 2 The French Connection 175

Interview with JérômeMe Lindon

Interview with Alain Robbe-Grillet

Interview with Eugène Ionesco

Pataphysics Award to Barney Rossset

"Publishing The French 'New Novel'" by Barney Rosset

Entr'acte 207

Letters from Judith Schmidt to Samuel Beckett

Village Voice on Happy Days Obie Award

Act 3 From Word to Image 215

Rosset Recollects

Interview with Barney Rosset on his Revolutionary Spirit

Interview with Barney Rosset on the Olympia-Merlin Conflict

Breath

Beckett's Corrections to Prologue for Oh Calcutta!

Film

Rosset on Film

Interview with Barney Rosset on the Five Grove Film Scripts

Letter from Samuel Beckett about Oriental Institute of Chicago Photograph

Excerpt from Recorded Film Pre-Production Transcript

Entr'acte 263

Come and Go

Letter from Rosset

Sol Lewitt Drawing in Harper's Bizarre

Selected Letters: Estelle Parsons, Samuel Beckett, Barney Rosset, David Mamet

Barney Rosset, Richard Seaver, and D.A. Pennebaker in Conversation

Selected Letters of the '70s

Act 4 The 'plays' the Thing 299

Rockaby

Daniel Labeille on Producing Rockaby

Correspondence between Labeille and Beckett

Endgame

First Paris Production

American Repertory Theater Production

Rosset Letter to Robert Brustein

Statements by Samuel Beckett and Grove Press

Waiting for Godot

Lincoln Center Production

Rosset Letter to Robin Williams

Rosset Letters to Beckett

Act 5 Après (Barney's) Grove 343

Letter from Samuel Beckett to Barney Rosset

Centre Pompidou

Opening to Address by Barney Rosset

Statement by Barney Rosset

Petition to Keep Rosset at Grove Press

Letter from Maurice Girodias to Samuel Beckett

Letter from Maurice Girodias to Serge July

Interview with Barney Rosset on his Fight to Publish Post-Grove

Interview with Barney Rosset on Beckett's Gift of Stirrings Still

Embers

Letters from John Calder to Joan Mitchell

Stirrings Still

Typescript

Review by Robert Scanlan

Letter from Rosset to Harold Pinter

Interview with Barney Rosset on Catastrophe and Vaclav Havel

Letter from Rosset to Vaclav Havel

Pen American Center Publisher Citation

Eleutheria

Letter from Beckett to Rosset

Jerry Tallmer in the Sunday Record

Letter from Rosset to Edward Albee

Letter from Bernard Gersten

Letter from Ciaran O'Reilly and Charlotte Moore

Program from Scena Theatre Production

Letters from Rosset to Jérôme Lindon and Edward Beckett

Letters from Edward Beckett to Rosset

Letter from Susan Sontag to Rosset

Smiting for Godot in Sarajevo

Susan Sontag Production Notes

Letter from Rosset to Susau Sontag

Susan Sontag Excerpts from "Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo"

Epilogue 451

Waiting for Godot at San Quentin 457

Rosset Publications of Beckett 462

Permission Credits 465

Index 477

Editorial Reviews

08/22/2016
The late Barney Rosset (1922–2012) was the longtime owner of Grove Press, where he brought to American readers the writings of Samuel Beckett, Allen Ginsberg, Eugène Ionesco, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and other avant-garde authors at a time when no one else would. He was also the first in the U.S. to publish controversial books like Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This moving, often poignant “scrapbook” of correspondence, interviews, contracts, recollections, photographs, theater posters, drawings, and doodles—much of it previously unpublished—focuses on Rosset and Beckett’s deepening friendship over 35 years. The former revolutionized 20th-century publishing, the latter theater, and through their correspondence, a panorama of mid-to-late-20th-century culture is on display. Of particular interest are Rosset’s insights into his writers; where Beckett’s French publisher saw the playwright as “unchangeable,” Rosset says that for him, “ was more of a changing, growing, swaying, marvelous organism, always in a state of transformation.” This work evokes two preeminent 20th-century figures and their profound impact on publishing, theater, literature, and culture. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

09/01/2016
Rosset (1922–2012), former owner of Grove Press and indefatigable opponent of censorship, triumphantly published the American editions of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer; the controversial novels of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and William S. Burroughs; as well as the translations of French avant-garde authors Jean Genet, Marguerite Duras, and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Rosset published Beckett's play Waiting for Godot and almost all of his later works. His friendship with the author/playwright is chronicled in this scrapbook collection of facsimiles of personal and business letters to Beckett (on Grove letterhead), contracts, faxes, telegrams, reviews of play performances, and interviews with Rosset and with his associates. The exchanges reveal Rosset's formative and consistent championing of Beckett's work, insisting that the plays be staged and performed in accordance with their creator's directives. The correspondence also disclose Rosset's active social interaction with authors and artists and document Beckett's longstanding collaboration with American director Alan Schneider, offering insights into Beckettian performance. VERDICT An essential complement to the second and third volumes of Cambridge University Press's The Letters of Samuel Beckett, wherein Beckett responds to and clarifies several Rosset missives contained here.—Lonnie Weatherby, McGill Univ. Lib., Montreal

Library Journal

2016-06-01
An evocative but somewhat slapdash scrapbook of documents and interviews concerning the iconoclastic publisher of Grove Press and his most famous author.As Paul Auster notes in his appreciative preface, the late Barney Rosset (1922-2012) made it Grove's business to challenge the mid-20th-century status quo both by battling censorship with the publication of the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer and by introducing America to a host of challenging new writers, from the Beat poets to such avatars of the European avant-garde as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Eugène Ionesco, and Harold Pinter. Some of them get nods here, but the focus is on Samuel Beckett, first and foremost among this stellar group from the time Rosset contacted him in 1953 to arrange an English-language edition of Waiting for Godot. The author and publisher's increasingly warm professional and personal relationship is chronicled in rather spotty fashion here: Rosset's letters—there are only a handful from Beckett—could use a lot more annotation than they receive from editor Oppenheim, who apparently thinks that a list of "Characters" up front is sufficient for general readers, who may be baffled by fleeting references to Beckett's fiction (also published by Grove) and to Rosset's notorious ouster by Grove's new owners in 1986, which should have been covered in more detail or not at all. Still, a wonderful period aroma emanates from the reproductions of typewritten letters on Grove letterhead, telegrams, newspaper clippings, etc., and the detailed documentation of such projects as Beckett's Film starring Buster Keaton and the world premiere of Rockaby with Billie Whitelaw is most welcome. Interviews with Les Editions de Minuit principal Jérôme Lindon and British publisher John Calder give a nice perspective on the international avant-garde. Not the last word on Beckett, Rosset, or Grove, but a vivid snapshot of a revolutionary era in the culture.

Kirkus Reviews