This new collection brings together First Love, The Calamative, The End and The Expelled; these four novellas are among the first major works of Beckett's decision to use French as his language of literary composition. Rich in verbal and situational humour, they offer a fascinating insight into many of the issues which preoccupied Beckett all his working life. As the first novella reveals, nobody writes with quite such cruel and unnervingly clever wit as Beckett...

Driven to his deathbed by an incurable disease, the thirty-year-old impoverished gentleman Chulkaturin decides to write a diary looking back on his short life. After describing his youthful disillusionment and his family's fall from grace and loss of status, the narrative focuses on his love for Liza, the daughter of a senior civil servant, his rivalry with the dashing Prince N. and his ensuing humiliation. These pages helped establish the archetype of the "superfluous man", a recurring figure in nineteenth-century Russian literature. First published in 1850, 'The Diary of a Superfluous Man' was initially censored by the authorities, as some of its passages were deemed too critical of Russian society. This volume also includes two other masterly novellas, also touching on the theme of disappointed love: 'Asya' and 'First Love'.

Driven to his deathbed by an incurable disease, the thirty-year-old impoverished gentleman Chulkaturin decides to write a diary looking back on his short life. After describing his youthful disillusionment and his family s fall from grace and loss of status, the narrative focuses on his love for Liza, the daughter of a senior civil servant, his rivalry with the dashing Prince N. and his ensuing humiliation. These pages helped establish the archetype of the superfluous man , a recurring figure in nineteenth-century Russian literature. First published in 1850, 'The Diary of a Superfluous Man' was initially censored by the authorities, as some of its passages were deemed too critical of Russian society. This volume also includes two other masterly novellas, also touching on the theme of disappointed love: 'Asya' and 'First Love'. . . . . .

Driven to his deathbed by an incurable disease, the thirty-year-old impoverished gentleman Chulkaturin decides to write a diary looking back on his short life. After describing his youthful disillusionment and his family s fall from grace and loss of status, the narrative focuses on his love for Liza, the daughter of a senior civil servant, his rivalry with the dashing Prince N. and his ensuing humiliation. These pages helped establish the archetype of the superfluous man , a recurring figure in nineteenth-century Russian literature. First published in 1850, 'The Diary of a Superfluous Man' was initially censored by the authorities, as some of its passages were deemed too critical of Russian society. This volume also includes two other masterly novellas, also touching on the theme of disappointed love: 'Asya' and 'First Love'. . . . . .

Like all the greatest writers, Samuel Beckett was primarily interested in discovering the meaning and purpose of life and of the world into which we are born. Knowledgeable about the religion his family and education instilled in him, which as an adult he could neither accept nor reject, he used it extensively in his novels, plays and poetry. Beckett’s works also explored philosophy and the imaginative world of Dante and Milton, as well as the theories of Darwin and scientific speculation, in order to create a literature that investigates human destiny more deeply and originally than any other writer had done before. In this, his second book about the essence and depth of Samuel Beckett’s thinking and literary art, John Calder analyses the dualism of Beckett’s theological writing, his debt to the Gnostics, Manichaeism and Geulincx in particular, the presence of ghosts in his work, and why his late writing has received so little attention compared to the early and middle periods. It will open up the much underestimated Beckett to deeper understanding and provide enjoyment to the many who have become convinced that this once derided author is one of the major literary figures of his time.

These four stories or ‘nouvelles’ date from 1945, though all were published much later, in French and subsequently in English. All make use of a first-person narrator, and relish its vagaries – the inability to remember facts, the uncertainty as to why he is speaking in the first place, the loss of heart when explanations seem called for… Above all, the stories crisply plot the narrator’s plotless descent into vagrancy, the steeper as it approaches The End. Out of these short works and their patient procedures grew the large canvases of Molloy and Malone Dies. My bench was still there. It was shaped to fit the curves of the seated body. It stood beside a watering trough, gift of a Mrs Maxwell to the city horses, according to the inscription. During the short time I rested there, several horses took advantage of the monument. The iron shoes approached and the jingle of the harness. Then silence. That was the horse looking at me. Then the noise of pebbles and mud that horses make when drinking. Then the silence again. That was the horse looking at me again. Then the pebbles again. Then the silence again. Till the horse had finished drinking or the driver deemed it had drunk its fill. Edited by Christopher Ricks.

Written over three months in 1946, Mercier and Camier was Beckett's first post-war work, and his first novel in French. He came to regard it as a practice piece, and set it aside to write his trilogy. Mercier et Camier was finally published in 1970, and in Beckett's English translation four years later. The eponymous heroes tramp around a city, then out of it, then back again. They are aimless, but there is something elusive that they should be doing. They arrange meetings, they drink, they argue, they discuss being shot of each other. They are preoccupied by the weather, by provisions, by a raincoat, by an umbrella, by a bicycle . . . George, said Camier, five sandwiches, four wrapped and one on the side. You see, he said, turning graciously to Mr Conaire, I think of everything. For the one I eat here will give me the strength to get back with the four others. Sophistry, said Mr Conaire. You set off with your five, wrapped, feel faint, open up, take one out, eat, recuperate, push on with the others. For all response, Camier began to eat. You'll spoil him, said Mr Conaire. Yesterday cakes, today sandwiches, tomorrow crusts and Thursday stones. Mustard, said Camier.

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. Well, thought Belacqua, it's a quick death, God help us all. It is not. 'Dante and the Lobster' is the first of the linked short stories in Samuel Beckett's first book, More Pricks Than Kicks. 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. Decades later, this story was hailed as the Nobel Prize-winner's earliest important work. Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

Two high school geniuses scheme to get the other to confess their love first. Two geniuses. Two brains. Two hearts. One battle. Who will confess their love first…?! Will Chika agree to train Miyuki one more time to make up for yet another of his surprising deficiencies? Then, Miyuki's sister and father meddle in his (mostly hypothetical) love life. Rumors that plague Yu have serious personal and academic consequences. The much-anticipated, much-dreaded Sports Festival finally arrives! And Chika dreams up a new game for the student council to play together-with literally explosive results. Who cares what other people think?

From one of Spain's greatest writers, a witty, moving novel about art, life, death and James Joyce. SHORTLISTED FOR THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE 'A writer who has no equal in the contemporary landscape of the Spanish novel.' Roberto Bolano Samuel Riba is about to turn 60. A successful publisher in Barcelona, he is increasingly prone to attacks of anxiety and, looking for distraction, he concocts a spur-of-the-moment trip to Dublin, a city he has never visited but once dreamed about. He sets off for Dublin on the pretext of honouring James Joyce's Ulysses on Bloomsday. But as he and his friends gather in the cemetery to give their orations, a mysterious figure in a mackintosh resembling Joyce's protege Samuel Beckett hovers in the background. Is it Beckett, or is it the writer of genius that Riba has spent his whole career trying, and failing, to find?

Therese first glimpses Carol in the New York department store where she is working as a sales assistant. Carol is choosing a present for her daughter; she looks preoccupied, exuding an aura of elegance as perfect as a secret. Standing there at the counter, Therese suddenly feels wholly innocent - wholly unprepared for the first shock of love. . .Therese was nineteen, and loved by a young man she cared about, but could not desire. Carol was a sophisticated married woman. Now Therese seemed to have no other purpose to her life other than their meeting? . .First published under a pseudonym in 1952, Carol is a love story told with compelling wit and eroticism, and consummate tenderness.

Therese first glimpses Carol in the New York department store where she is working as a sales assistant. Carol is choosing a present for her daughter; she looks preoccupied, exuding an aura of elegance as perfect as a secret. Standing there at the counter, Therese suddenly feels wholly innocent - wholly unprepared for the first shock of love. . .Therese was nineteen, and loved by a young man she cared about, but could not desire. Carol was a sophisticated married woman. Now Therese seemed to have no other purpose to her life other than their meeting? . .First published under a pseudonym in 1952, Carol is a love story told with compelling wit and eroticism, and consummate tenderness.

Unexpected. Unrequited. Forbidden. Eternal. Everyone has their own love story. And in a twist of fate, four extraordinary love stories combine over the course of a romantic Valentine's Day in Medieval England. Miles and Shelby find love where they least expect it. Roland learns a painful lesson about finding and losing love. Arianne pays the price for a love so fierce it burns. And for the first – and last – time, Daniel and Luce will spend a night together like none other. Lauren Kate's Fallen in Love is filled with love stories . . . the ones everyone has been waiting for. True love never says goodbye . . .

Murphy, Samuel Becketts 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. Murphys lovestruck fiancee Celia tries with tragic pathos to draw him back, but her attempts are doomed to failure. Murphys friends and familiars are simulacra of Murphy, fragmented and incomplete. But Becketts achievement lies in the brilliantly original language used to communicate this vision of isolation and misunderstanding. The combination of particularity and absurdity gives Murphys world its painful definition, but the sheer comic energy of Becketts prose releases characters and readers alike into exuberance.

Originally written in French and translated into English by Beckett, Endgame was given its first London performance at the Royal Court Theatre in 1957. Hamm: Clov! Clov: Yes. Hamm: Nature has forgotten us. Clov: There's no more nature. Hamm: No more nature! You exaggerate. Clov: In the vicinity. Hamm: But we breathe, we change! We lose our hair our teeth! Our bloom! Our ideals! Clov: Then she hasn't forgotten us.

Murphy, 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 fiancee 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. But 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.