Of course, knowing that the arc of the season is essentially right doesn’t mean that the writing goes easily. No, there are still many days when you stare at the index cards which were supposed to spell out the spine of the episode and they no longer connect. You start to feel you can’t really remember what a story is. What is it even that people like about a TV show? About anything? What is true? And you can find yourself Googling, “What is a story?” “What things do people do?” “What is interesting?” Collected here for the first time, the complete scripts of Succession: Season One, Season Two, and Season Three feature unseen extra material. Including deleted scenes, alternative dialogue, and character directions. They reveal a unique insight into the writing, creation and development of a TV sensation and a screen- writing masterpiece. Season One will include an exclusive introduction from creator and showrunner, Jesse Armstrong. Seasons Two, Three and Four will also include exclusive introductions by other screen writers on the show including ‘Executive Producer Frank Rich’ and ‘Executive Producer and writer Lucy Prebble’. Underscoring the Shakespearean parallels Succession has been subjected to from the start, “Connor’s Wedding” feels like a play, with most of the action happening in confined spaces in real time — on the yacht where the wedding takes place and on the plane where Logan dies. All the Bells Say,” written by Armstrong and directed by Mark Mylod, begins with Logan reading a story to his grandson Iverson (Quentin Morales) after Iverson’s dad Kendall almost drowned in the pool. Meanwhile, Roman and Shiv discover their father’s plans to sell the company without telling them. Succession is one of the most popular TV series in the last decade. Each season finale has led to an Emmy ® award for Best Screenwriting. In addition, the show has amassed eleven other Emmys, five Golden Globes and three BAFTAs.

After HBO commissioned the series, he began writing the script for the pilot in a small flat in Brixton in the lead up to the Brexit referendum and the first cast read-through took place in New York on 8 November 2016 – the day Donald Trump was elected president.Faber has scooped the complete, authorised scripts to all four seasons of the Emmy-winning HBO Original drama series "Succession", complete with introductions from the writers. Armstrong’s breakthrough came with the prize-winning sitcom Peep Show (2003-2015), starring Robert Webb and David Mitchell, which he also co-wrote with Sam Bain. Photograph: Channel 4

I wonder if the sad I’d be from being without you might be less than the sad I get from being with you? He never directed an episode of Succession, mostly owing to a shortage of time. He says he would be interested in directing a feature film, but he prefers the time and space allowed by TV. “I like to be able to elaborate, rather than the crystalline thing of a movie, that you only get one shot at the idea and then you have to move on. Maybe it’s because I come out of sitcom, where you try to juice every drop out of every situation.”

No matter how much praise the show received, all that stood between him and a bad season was his own hard work and that of his co-writers and collaborators. Armstrong swears by the method of refining and rewriting until the last moment but accepts that it caused tensions with the actors, who were eager to learn their lines. This was particularly the case with Jeremy Strong (Kendall Roy), who is known for his lengthy method-style preparation, but Armstrong says the whole cast found it difficult. “We fought each other to a draw,” he says, “rather than ever settling on something that was entirely satisfactory.” Armstrong agrees: “That comic facility was very important to me. I feel reassured when even in the midst of tragedy there is a sort of comic ironic flavour to the turn of events.” Greg and Tom came fast, too. Tom from two roots. One was thinking about the sort of lunks I’ve occasionally seen powerful women choose as partners. Plausible, manly men with big watches and a soothing affable manner. That mixed with the deadly courtier, a more 18th-century figure, minutely attuned to shifts in power and influence, an invisible deadly gas that occurs in certain confined places and rises to kill anyone unwise enough not to take precautions. A hanger-on sustained by some Fitzgeraldian illusions about the world, a sense that perhaps the rich really are different from us and a romantic ambition to make it in New York City. Succession: Season One will include an exclusive introduction from creator and showrunner Jesse Armstrong. Season Two, Season Three and Season Four will also include exclusive introductions by other screenwriters on the show including executive producer Frank Rich and executive producer and writer Lucy Prebble. Seasons One, Two and Three will be published on 18th May, with Succession: Season Four shortly following the end of that series.