Add MS 89083/1/1/2

Fifteen communications from Pinter to Goldstein, most of which are accompanied by a typed transcription (of recent date) supplied by Goldstein. The transcriptions sometimes include supplementary contextual information. Although most letters are poorly dated, references within them to particular cricket matches, and to the first London performances of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, suggest the following chronology when combined with the outline of Pinter's acting schedule (Colchester, summer in Ireland, then back to Colchester) given in David T. Thompson, Pinter: The Player's Playwright (1985).

• 1. Wed. [18 May 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Typed letter (1 sheet). Discusses writing. 'What you want from my writing is not selfexpression but selfconfession, and you're not going to get it.' (The date of the letter can be deduced from a reference to Whit Sunday in the final paragraph.)
• 2. Colchester, Sun. [?June 1955]. 'Talking about Watt, in August Beckett's play, "Waiting for Godot", is to be done at the Arts Theatre. Yes. So become a member for five bob.'
• 3. Colchester, Tue. [?June 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Typed letter (1 sheet).
• 4. Colchester, 18 June 1955 [postmark]. Pinter to Goldstein. Autograph letter card, with Goldstein's typed transcription. 'Next Sunday I'm off to Ireland.'
• 5. Colchester Repertory Co., Portstewart, Co. Derry. Tues. [28 June 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Typed letter (1 sheet), with Goldstein's typed copy. 'Jill [Johnson] arrives next week'. Pinter's concluding cricket remark ('what about Hutton's 194?') indicates 28 June as the date of the letter. Alternatively, the date is the following Tuesday, 5 July. (Hutton scored 194 runs in his first innings for Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire at Trent Bridge, 25-28 June 1955.) The letter refers to Pinter having typed a composition by Goldstein: 'I've taken the liberty to put a few commas in, here and there. Yes, I like it very much. The last line is so entirely conclusive, for me, exhiliratingly [sic] so, and seals the harmony of the piece with, or rather to, as they say, perfection.' Goldstein's composition was not retained by him with Pinter's letter but kept separately. The composition that Pinter has typed appears to be, to judge from context and physical appearance (including the identical folds of the letter and the typed composition), 'The Self-Contained Compartment' - for which, see Add MS 89083/2/1. Pinter's letter continues with a passing reference to a similarly entitled composition of his own: 'Shall wait for my Compartment. By the way, for my money he betrays her. Struck me later you might be reading it differently. But you're quite entitled to do so. Anyway, let me know your conclusions and whatnot.'
• 6. Colchester Repertory Company, Portstewart, Co. Derry. Wed. [13 July 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Typed letter (1 sheet). Goldstein has evidently commented on Pinter's 'The Compartment'. Pinter replies: 'I must leave it for a while and let the whole thing cool off. My sightline is fogged - I see very well the trap I fell into, but can't at the moment, see my way out of it. That "The Compartment" is a failure I have no doubt - It, and I with regard to it, must go into a refrigerator for a time if it is to prove at all fecund.' A reference to hearing the end of the Test yesterday ('I like Winslow') indicates the letter was written 13 July (England v South Africa, Third Test, Old Trafford, 7-12 July, in which Winslow scored 108).
• 7. Portstewart, Sunday. [24 July 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Typed letter (1 sheet), with Goldstein's typed copy. 'Last night in the dressingroom, before the show, the producer was talking about two friends of his who had come from Belfast to see the play. "Betty's done pretty well lately," he said to another man who knew them. "She's been in Paris, secretary to some Irish writer who's been translating his work from French back into English." Whereupon I jumped up in a state of wild amaze. Eh? What? Who? Afterwards I met her, and we talked a long while. Beckett, it seems, though many years in Paris, speaks English with a Dublin accent.' The letter can be dated by a cricket reference to [Doug] Padgett ('didn't he get a century yesterday') - Padget scored 115 for Yorkshire on Saturday 23 July (Warwickshire v Yorkshire, Edgbaston, 23-26 July 1955).
• 8. Portstewart, Wed. [?27 July 1955]. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'Received today Beckett's "Malone Meurt" from the woman I told you about. Upon my return of it she is to send me "Godot".'
• 9. [Portstewart], Friday [either 5 or 12 August 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Typed letter (2 sheets), with Goldstein's typed copy. 'Received your letter five minutes ago'. Goldstein's typed copy of Pinter's letter includes the remarks: 'This letter is lost in which I recounted my impressions of Waiting for Godot at the Arts Theatre where I believe I attended the first night.' Waiting for Godot opened there on 3 August 1955. The first portion only of Pinter's letter is reprinted in Various Voices; however, the letter continues, without pause, and at greater length: 'Meanwhile let me tell you about "Malone Meurt". I have read "Malone Meurt". I read it in its French deep into every night.'
• 10. Portstewart, Mon. [probably 15 August 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Typed letter (1 sheet), with Goldstein's typed copy. 'Thanks for your second letter on "Godot". I still have not read it, and shan't, I don't think, until Zwemmers have got it.' Pinter refers to the review by Kenneth Tynan (Observer, 7 August), and to an article in the Sunday Times by Harold Hobson, but seems to refer not to Hobson's review of 7 August but to his subsequent article of 14 August; hence the suggested date for this letter. The letter ends: 'I am changed by Molloy.'
• 11. Portstewart, Londonderry, 9 September 1955 (postmark). Thurs. Pinter to Goldstein. Autograph letter card, with Goldstein's typed transcription. 'What a geezer Watt turned out to be.'
• 12. Portstewart, Fri. [early September 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Typed letter (1 sheet). Goldstein is urged to visit as soon as possible, as Pinter and Johnson are departing in two weeks. 'Yes, Molloy and Malone have knocked me from here to yesterday.'
• 13. Portstewart, Wed. [early September 1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Autograph letter (4 sheets), with Goldstein's typed transcription. 'We hope to see Godot on Wed. next.' When he returned from Ireland, Pinter saw Waiting for Godot on its transfer to the Criterion, where it opened on 12 September 1955, although on which particular Wednesday he saw the play is not indicated. Note: as Goldstein concludes at the head of his transcription, the envelope (postmarked 10 November 1953) that originally accompanied this letter belonged to another letter (with which it has now been re-united in this collection).
• 14. Colchester, Wed. [30 November 1955 - postmark]. Pinter to Goldstein. Autograph letter (1 sheet) and envelope. With Goldstein's typed transcription. 'I'll be out of work in less than two weeks. I'm leaving this gaff & returning to the smoke. So keep the kettle boiling.'
• 15. Wed. [1955]. Pinter to Goldstein. Autograph letter (3 sheets), with Goldstein's typed transcription. Beginning 'Glazed on a sundoused hill', the letter paints a picture of summer but it is not clear from the letter whether it was written before Pinter (and Johnson) went to Ireland or from the time of the 'idyllic' Irish summer of 1955 to which Billington (1996, p. 51) refers.