Samuel Beckett, Dream of Fair to Middling Women

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Beckett’s first, unfinished novel,

Dream of Fair to Middling Women

, was begun in 1931, but mostly written over the summer of 1932, in Paris (Ackerley and Gontarski, 150). Initial attempts to have the novel published failed, as several houses rejected it. In later years, Beckett suppressed

Dream

until, finally, in 1986 he allowed an edition to be prepared, but insisted that publication should be posthumous. The first edition, published by Black Cat, appeared in 1992.

Dream is an overtly modernist work, probing artistic and ideological conventions, wilfully difficult and demanding, flaunting its erudition with hyper-allusiveness and polylingualism. Specifically, it lends itself to being read as a critique of the realist tradition of literature, the deficiencies of which exercise both the

2047 words

Citation: Madden, Leonard. "Dream of Fair to Middling Women". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 January 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5500, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5500 Dream of Fair to Middling Women 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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