The notebooks, complete with the author's notes and doodles, 

cover more than 700 pages including passages that were cut for the 1938 publication. 

Photograph: Sotheby's/PA

Samuel Beckett's Murphy draft bought by Reading University for £1m

Draft of author's first published novel sells at Sotheby's to team led by Beckett's friend and biographer James Knowlson

The 100 best novels / No 61 / Murphy by Samuel Beckett (1938)

Clarice Armitstead

Wednesday 10 July 2013

Reading University has become the new owner of "almost certainly the most important English language manuscript still in private hands", after paying nearly £1m for a six-notebook draft of Samuel Beckett's first published novel, Murphy.