Achieving lasting fame with the 1953 play Waiting for Godot and his winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature, enigmatic, Irish-born Samuel Beckett was uncomfortable in the limelight. In addition to assessing Beckett's principal works, Gerry Dukes's biography of this towering modernist delves into his complicated relationship with his mother; his friendships with James Joyce and Peggy Guggenheim; and his close ties to his cousins. Many of the photographs shown here have rarely been seen, and include family snapshots as well as images from productions of his plays, featuring such performers as Jeremy Irons and Patrick Magee.