Given Samuel Beckett had reputedly the worst handwriting of any 20th century writer, reading 20,000 of his personal letters clearly demands a lot of commitment.

But the contents of this correspondence, offering a rich insight into his views on everything from theatre and painting to sport and ornithology, have already filled three volumes with a fourth due next year.

At the Irish launch of volume three in the United Arts Club in Dublin, two of the books' editors, professor Dan Gunn and Dr George Craig, selected a small number that showed the varied tapestry of Beckett's life experience. Prof Gunn said they showed "how engaged he is with the world".

“The opposite to being a hermit, he has lots of friends and he is constantly listening,” Prof Gunn said.

He said the letters helped us to understand the material he drew from in his writings and his “human concerns” with “pain and death and physical suffering”.

The book, The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 3, 1957-1965, which was launched in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin and the French embassy, and is also edited by Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck, pulls together a selection of material.

They illustrate his support of young writers, his thoughts on censorship and an enduring tendency to give everything he had to friends.