First published in 1985, this collection gathers together some of the most prominent interpreters of Samuel Beckett's work. Interviews with close associates of Beckett and early exponents of his work, such as Jack MacGowran and Roger Blin, form some of the personal memories and recollections. Editor S. E. Gontarski sought in this revised collection – with its matching of critical and personal anecdotes – to ‘retain the evocative power of Beckett's work as it was interpreted by his early collaborators and critics’ (p. xv). Particularly illuminating are the relationships between the notoriously reticent Beckett and those seeking his attentions. Director Alan Schneider describes his relationship with Beckett as a ‘marriage in absentia’ (p. 177), an alliance to which Schneider clearly felt he was ‘more faithful than the pope’ (p. 179). Editor and founder of Merlin Richard Seaver recalls an infamous rebuttal while working on the English translation of Le fin that Beckett thought, ‘No one's interested in this . . . this rubbish’ (p. 21). Analyses of Beckett's prose such as Rubin Rabinovitz's examination of repetition in Murphy sit alongside various idiosyncratic recollections such as Beckett's 1976 meeting with William Burroughs, Susan Sontag and Allen Ginsberg. Burroughs's and Sontag's differing accounts recalling this meeting with Beckett illustrate not only the shifting nature of memory but also our reliance on testimony as historical evidence.

Divided into four sections – ‘Preliminaries’, ‘The Page’, ‘The Stage’ and ‘Coda’ – the volume illustrates the vast scope of Beckett's work in both prose and playwriting and the burgeoning criticism surrounding it. Walter D. Asmus's rehearsal notes detailing Beckett's contributions to the productions of Waiting for Godot, That Time and Footfalls at the Berlin Schiller theatre demonstrate Beckett's readiness to adapt his work rather than rigidly protecting it. His willingness to change the text with each production is juxtaposed with his better-known restraint at having it altered at the behest of directors. Martin Esslin's overview of Beckett's relationship with the BBC is indispensable to those studying the development of his radio plays. The increasing formality of Beckett's later work, as described by S. E. Gontarski, Pierre Astier and Enoch Brater, shows that Beckett's ‘estimate of the human condition is as unrelieved now as it was sixty years earlier’ (p. 308). The sentiment is as apt now in the pages of this new edition. What emerges in the collection is the vast scope contained within the ever-decreasing scale of Beckett's oeuvre.

Prefacing this second edition, S. E. Gontarski notes that ‘what emerges is a Beckett for two centuries’ (p. xvi). The Beckett that spans the majority of the twentieth century now becomes a messianic figure for the twenty-first. The author-as-icon has become part of the Beckett package. This collection attests to the fact that in the ever-increasing hype surrounding Beckett, at the core is a body of work that is arguably beyond parallel. The new edition is a timely reminder of the range and depth of both the private and public Beckett and the field of Beckett studies in general.