Nobel Laureate’s handwritten manuscript ‘set to fetch £1m’

Six exercise books of the writer’s work on his first novel Murphy, and only seen by a handful of people, are being offered by Sotheby’s in London next month.

The auctioneers said the notebooks will give a unique insight into how the Nobel laureate’s mind worked.

Handwritten in Dublin and London between August 1935 and June 1936 while Beckett was undergoing psycho-analysis, the books are full of revisions, doodles and sketches of his contemporaries James Joyce and Charlie Chaplin.

Peter Selley, Sotheby’s senior specialist in books and manuscripts, said the 800-page manuscript should redefine Beckett studies for years.

“This is unquestionably the most important manuscript of a complete novel by a modern British or Irish writer to appear at auction for many decades,” he said.

“I have known about the existence of this remarkable manuscript for a long time – as have a number of others in the rare book business and some Beckett scholars – but it has only been glimpsed, tantalisingly, by a few chosen individuals during that time.

“The notebooks contain almost infinite riches for all those – whether scholars or collectors – interested in this most profound of modern writers, who more than anyone else, perhaps, captures the essence of modern man.”