Manuscript Chronology

[1] The earliest stage of the English translation is rather complex in terms of the chronology of the extant documents. Since there is only one manuscript (the three notebooks EN1/EN2/EN3), the expected chronology (based on Beckett's customary way of working) is that this manuscript precedes the two extant typescripts (ET1 and ET2). But a collation of versions suggests that the first part of ET1 (until and including folio 24r) is older than the first 23 pages of the manuscript. For instance, the substitutions in sentence 280, 'Low types they were ^{must have been}, they^ir pockets full of venom ^poisons and caustic ^antidotes' in typescript ET1 (MS-HRC-SB-5-10, 8r) have all been incorporated in the manuscript: 'Low types they must have been, their pockets full of poisons and antidotes' (EN1; MS-HRC-SB-5-9-1, 9r).

This chronology offers an explanation for the changed order of the novel's opening questions. The French version reads: 'Où maintenant? Quand maintenant? Qui maintenant?' (1953, 7; 1971, 7). The first English typescript presents the questions in the same order: 'Where now? When now? Who now?' (ET1, 1r), whereas the order is changed in the manuscript: 'Where now? Who now? When now?' (EN1, 1r).

ET1 folio 25r is marked with the comment 'end of revision'. Of these first 24 pages, the first 5 seem to have been replaced by the 6 pages of the typescript used for the pre-book publication of the opening fragment in Spectrum. For these first 6 pages, the order is generally [1] typescript ET1, [2] pre-book publication in Spectrum, [3] ET1, holograph revisions, [4] manuscript EN1, [5] second typescript ET2 - as the closing words of sentence 28 illustrate:

[1] ET1 (first TS, 1r):	'without omitting any.'
[2] Spectrum:	'without omitting any.'
[3] ET1, overlay revision:	'without omitting any exception.'
[4] EN1 (manuscript):	'without exception.'
[5] ET2 (second TS, 1r):	'without exception.'

This chronology suggests that the manuscript (EN1) may have served as what Daniel Ferrer has called a 'protocol' for making the second typescript (ET2), but this scenario is complicated by another revision campaign ('campagne de révision') on ET1, which may be illustrated by means of sentence 480:

ET1, typed text:	'What nonsense all this business about light and dark.'
ET1, 1st revision:	'What nonsense all this business stuff about light and dark.'
EN1 (manuscript):	'What nonsense all this stuff about light and dark.'
ET1, 2nd revision:	'What nonsense rubbish all this business stuff about light and dark.'
ET2:	'What rubbish all this stuff about light and dark.'

It seems likely, therefore, that Beckett did not use only the manuscript to type ET2, but that he used both the manuscript and the first typescript to make the second typescript.

[back to synoptic sentence view]

[2] The extract in the Texas Quarterly (TQ) was published before 1 June 1958; the extracts in Spectrum (S) and the Chicago Review (CR) were published after this date, that is, after ET2. For clarity's sake, however, we have indicated the three pre-book publications on the same line because the typescripts for these separately published extracts have been used to produce the amalgamated typescript ET1. ET1-E1 and ET1-E2 are carbon copies, added as appendices at the back of ET1. In the map, ET1-E2 is placed above TQT1 (of which it is the carbon) because it has been incorporated into ET1. In that new capacity (as part of ET1) it served as a protocol for the typing of ET2. For instance, ET1-E2 contains a late autograph revision that is not in any of the other TQ-related documents, but that is taken up in ET2. That revision is 'dayspring' for 'crack of dawn'.