By Maev Kennedy,

June 8th, 2014

Samuel Beckett manuscript of �rstpublished novel to go on display

Six cheap dark blue notebooks, sacred relics to admirers of SamuelBeckett (http://www.theguardian.com/culture/beckett), will go on displaythis week for the �rst time since an English university paid almost £1mfor them at auction. e manuscript of Murphy, the Nobel laureate's �rstpublished novel, from 1938, will be on show at Reading University for justone day, before returning to the Beckett scholar who is painstakinglytranscribing every crossed-out word, dash and comma. Just one wordtook him four months to puzzle out: rather disappointingly, it was nogemstone of Beckettian imagination, but "tending".

"ese things are valuable, though of course only exciting to sad peoplelike me," John Pilling, a world-renowned authority on the author, said. "Itis not his greatest work, but it is the earliest �ction(http://www.theguardian.com/books/�ction) manuscript we have, his�rst published novel, relatively readable and still funny, and these areprecious qualities. It has had a cult following from the start – HaroldPinter stole his copy from Hackney library. And of course Murphychanged my life. I was only 15 when I �rst read it – a fateful day."

Beckett gave the notebooks to a slightly ramshackle friend, the Irish poetBrian Coffey, who eventually sold them to a collector. ey were regardedas one of the most important 20th-century manuscripts still in private

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Samuel Beckett's manuscript of Murphy displays the author'sinitial struggle with inspiration, featuring entire pages covered inscribbles and doodles. Photograph: Jane Bown for the Guardian

hands when auctioned at Sotheby's last year, estimated at up to £1.2m.After seven tense minutes, bidding against an anonymous collector on thephone, the university got them for £962,500.

Since mounting an exhibition in 1969 in celebration of the authorwinning the Nobel prize, Reading has gradually built up the largestcollection of Beckett material in the world, including many gifts from theauthor before his death in 1989. e one-day exhibition on Wednesday, atthe university's Museum of Rural Life (http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/special-collections/2014/05/becketts-murphy-on-display/) – the most accessiblesecure display space – will be the �rst time the notebooks have ever beenon show.

ey reveal that the novel, where the central character gets a job in amental hospital as a blessed escape from the madness of his life inLondon, was originally called Sasha Murphy and that he was 30, the sameage as the author in 1936. More signi�cantly, they show it took Becketteight attempts to arrive at the opening lines, which he changed from: "esun shone, as only the sun can, on nothing new," to the much morefamiliarly Beckettian tone of: "e sun shone, having no alternative, onthe nothing new."

After four months, Pilling is about halfway through the text, transcribingby hand in pencil into suitably Beckettian battered ancient ledgers, whichbelonged to his grandfather and proclaim on the cover that George V isking.

e notebooks show that Beckett struggled initially: the �rst 10 pages arecompletely scored out, and on several days inspiration obviously failedcompletely, leaving entire pages covered in scribbles and doodles,including a caricature of Charlie Chaplin.

"He does get himself into terrible tangles," Pilling said fondly. "What's sodifficult about a character getting up and walking to the door? But youwouldn't believe the difficulties Beckett can make for himself, often beforegoing back to his original version."

Pilling says his work is easier because he knows Beckett so well that hecan often – but not always – work out what a heavily crossed-out wordmust be.

"A colleague leaned over my shoulder, looked at my notebook and theoriginal, and said immediately: 'at word isn't scarves, it's favours.' Hewas right of course, he's always right except when he's wrong. Butundoubtedly, some historian will look at the manuscript again in 20 yearsand say that it was scarves."

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