Samuel Beckett was a reluctant biographical subject. Though friends and acquaintances recollect a kind and generous man, he guarded his privacy with intense vigilance, seldom granting interviews and always claiming that his work should speak for itself. However, when his authorised biographer, James Knowlson, pointed out the recurrences of images from the Ireland of his childhood in his writing, he agreed. ‘“They're obsessional,” he said, and went on to add several others.’ In early prose works, like More Pricks than Kicks (1934) or Murphy (1938), the correspondences of character and event with Beckett's own life are very explicit. In his post-Second World War work, the biographical allusions become more submerged and less readily identifiable, just as the settings become more detached from a recognisable reality. Yet Beckett's imagination is saturated in his life experiences, even if the direct references to these experiences become rarer. Indeed, examination of the various drafts of Beckett's drama demonstrates what one critic has called the ‘intent of undoing’: the connections to a recognisable, and biographical, world become more attenuated as the drafts proceed. The events in Beckett's life leave their traces in the shape of his work, without necessarily leaving an inventory in its content.

However, biographical criticism holds dangers too. Beckett is one of the most innovative and difficult writers of the twentieth century. It is tempting, faced with the often elusive meanings of his work, to seek refuge in ascertainable facts by pointing out correspondences with his life.