Genesis | 12 September 2013

In Competition 2814 you were invited to describe how a great writer stumbled upon an idea that he or she later put to good use.

Thanks to Messrs Allgar and Moore, Brians both, for suggesting that I challenge competitors to imagine the unlikely circumstances in which the seeds of great literary works were sown.

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Patrick O’Flynn

Reform is rattling the establishment

I enjoyed Chris O’Carroll’s tale of the genesis of that famous stage direction ‘Exit pursued by a bear’ and John O’Byrne’s account of Samuel Beckett waiting with his mother for a bus that never comes. Stephen Walsh finds the origins of Hemingway’s spare, muscular prose in the classroom.

The winners take £25 each. Lydia Shaxberd earns £30.

Exhausted from his play, young Beckett slumped under the solitary tree.