Samuel Beckett was born near Dublin, Ireland, on April 13, 1906 into a Protestant, middle class home. His father was a quantity surveyor and his mother worked as a nurse. At the age of 14 he was sent to the same school that Oscar Wilde attended, and he later went on to study romance languages at Trinity College, Dublin.
Beckett experienced frequent bouts of depression, even as a young man, and is known to have commented, "I had little talent for happiness." He often stayed in bed until late in the afternoon and hated long conversations. As a young poet he apparently rejected the advances of James Joyce's daughter and then commented that he did not have feelings that were human. This...
