Echo's Bones

In 1933, Chatto & Windus agreed to publish Samuel Beckett’s More Pricks Than Kicks, a collection of ten interrelated stories?it was to be his first published work of fiction. At his editor's request, Beckett penned an additional story to serve as the final piece. It was called ?Echo’s Bones,” but it caused many problems for Beckett, as he had killed off the protagonist of the stories. But in the end, his editor politely turned it down and it was not included. As a result, the story ?Echo’s Bones,” not to be confused with the poem and collection of poems of the same title, remained unpublished. Now, almost eight decades later, it will finally find its way into print.

This little known text will be introduced by the preeminent Beckett scholar, Dr. Mark Nixon, who will situate the work in terms of its biographical context, its Joycean influences, and as a vital link in the evolution of Beckett’s early work. Beckett’s confession that he included in the story ?all I knew” attests to the importance of ?Echo’s Bones” within his oeuvre.The posthumous publication of Echo’s Bones marks the highly-anticipated return of one our literary giants.

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)one of the leading literary and dramatic figures of the twentieth century, was born in Foxrock, Ireland and attended Trinity College in Dublin. In 1969, Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and commended for having ?transformed the destitution of man into his exaltation.”


Dr. Mark Nixon is Lecturer in English at the University of Reading, UK, where he is also the Director of the Beckett International Foundation.