Beckett Collection: Correspondence

The collection contains Beckett’s correspondence with many friends, family and collaborators. There are  over 200 items of correspondence with the scholar Ruby Cohn (BC MS 5100 [COH]); around 120 items of correspondence between Beckett and the theatre designer Jocelyn Herbert (BC MS 5200 [HER]); over 70 items of correspondence between Beckett and his lover Pamela Mitchell in the late 1950s and 1960s (BC MS 5060 [MIT]); over 40 items of correspondence with his cousin, John Beckett (BC MS 5411); and over 60 items of correspondence with the actor, David Warrilow (BC MS 5549).

Please note that surrogate copies of correspondence, not originals, will normally be made available in the reading room. Please contact Special Collections for more information on accessing the original item.

The copying of any of Beckett’s handwriting and sketches, or any unpublished letters, typescripts, manuscripts or draft versions of his work that differ from the final published version is not permitted.

Please contact us if you need further information.

More Information

• A full description of the Beckett Collection is available via our online database.
• A handlist for the whole collection will be made available soon.
• There are handlists for the correspondence with Ruby Cohn, Jocelyn Herbert, and Pamela Mitchell
• See also an Introduction to the Beckett Collection for information on our other Beckett related collections.
• See also The Letters of Samuel Beckett at Emory University, a project established to collect and consult, as well as transcribe, all extant letters by Samuel Beckett.
• See also the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project, which brings together digital facsimiles of documents in different holding libraries and adds transcriptions of Beckett’s manuscripts.
• See also the Location Register of 20th Century English Literary Manuscripts and Letters for details of Samuel Beckett’s manuscripts held at other archives.