The work of Samuel Beckett, winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature, is notoriously difficult. But knowing how something was made can help us understand how and why it works. Following that principle, this book aims to offer a way into Beckett's first published novel, Murphy. With various images from the original Murphy notebooks, with a digital edition of all the relevant manuscripts and with transcriptions of Beckett's often near-illegible handwriting, the book analyses the genesis of one of the most fascinating novels of his oeuvre.