S. E. Gontarski is professor of English at Florida State University.

• “Foreword to Second Edition”; “Preface to the Second Edition”; 1. “The Journal of Beckett Studies, The First Fifteen Years: An Introduction,” by S. E. Gontarski; 2. “Beckett’s Proust,” by John Pilling; 3. “‘Birth Astride of a Grave’: Samuel Beckett’s ‘Act without Words, I,’” by S. E. Gontarski; 4. “Belacqua as Artist and Lover: ‘What a Misfortune,’” by Jeri L. Kroll; 5. “Watt: Language as Interdiction and Consolation,” by Thomas J. Cousineau; 6. “Murphy’s Metaphysics,” by James Acheson; 7. “‘Embers:’ An Interpretation,” by Paul Lawley; 8. “The Orphic Mouth in Not I,” by Katherine Kelly; 9. “Jung and the “Molloy” Narrative,” by J. D. O’Hara; 10. “Imagination Dead Imagine: The Imagination and Its Context,” by James Hansford; 11. “Watt: Music, Tuning, and Tonality,” by Heath Lees; 12. “Quoting from Godot: Trends in Contemporary French Theater,” by Anne C. Murch; 13. “‘Imaginative Transactions’ in ‘La Falaise,’” by James Hansford; 14. “Beckett and the Temptation of Solipsism,” by Ileana Marcoulesco; Bibliography of Books, Portions of Which First Appeared in the Journal of Beckett Studies; Contributors; Index

“Original, well thought out, and unique contributions to the field of Beckett scholarship.”—Brian Finney, University of Southern California.“A distinguished gathering of Beckett commentary… All of the critics in Gontarski’s collection excel. [. . . in a] gathering of thirteen essays… of exceptional merit that are not [otherwise] readily available on library shelves.”—Melvin J. Friedman in Contemporary Literature.