Samuel Beckett lectured on modern French literature at his old university, Trinity College, in 1930 1931 but those lectures are not widely known and have rarely been studied. This is one of the least known periods of Beckett's life. He had just returned from Paris where he had met James Joyce and had started his literary career but had not yet written his first novel.

Brigitte Le Juez is the first writer to fully study these lectures, the most complete record of Beckett the young intellectual, and a valuable guide to the inspirations behind his work and concept of literature. They answer many of the questions about Beckett's work. How did he define the modern novel of his day? What should literature strive to achieve, or more properly, what should it not be? They reveal the writers he studied and was influenced by and the notebooks demonstrate that Racine is the writer most frequently praised by Beckett while Balzac is the target of his fiercest criticism. Other writers studied by Beckett include Proust, Flaubert and Stendhal, Dostoyevsky and Andre Gide.