Beckett’s first, unfinished novel,

, 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

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 21 November 2024.]