Irish dramatist and novelist Samuel Beckett received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature for his highly acclaimed body of work, including the play Waiting for Godot, his best-known work and a staple of the modern stage. Half a century after it was first published, the play is considered the forerunner of the plays of Ionesco, Pinter, Stoppard, and others. Harold Bloom introduces this volume of new critical essays about Beckett and his works, which is complete with a chronology of the author's life, a bibliography of his works, and an index.