Echo's Bones
Page 13
[UoR MS 2444/Letter Book 151/241]
My dear Sam,
What a big one! Ever so many thanks for ‘Echo’s Bones’. I shall read it with delight over this week-end. [. . .]
Yours ever,
Charles
Charles Prentice to Samuel Beckett, 13 NOVEMBER 1933
[UoR MS 2444/Letter Book 151/277]
Dear Sam,
It is a nightmare. Just too terribly persuasive. It gives me the jim-jams. The same horrible and immediate switches of the focus, and the same wild unfathomable energy of the population. There are chunks I don’t connect with. I am so sorry to feel like this. Perhaps it is only over the details, and I may have a correct inkling of the main impression. I am sorry, for I hate to be dense, but I hope I am not altogether insensitive. ‘Echo’s Bones’ certainly did land on me with a wallop.
Do you mind if we leave it out of the book – that is, publish ‘More Pricks than Kicks’ in the original form in which you sent it in? Though it’s on the short side, we’ll still be able to price it at 7/6d. ‘Echo’s Bones’ would, I am sure, lose the book a great many readers. People will shudder and be puzzled and confused; and they won’t be keen on analysing the shudder. I am certain that ‘Echo’s Bones’ would depress the sales very considerably.
I hate having to say this, as well as falling behind scratch myself, and I hope you will forgive as far as you can. Please try to make allowances for us; the future of the book affects you as well.
This is a dreadful débâcle – on my part, not on yours, God save the mark. But I have to own up to it. A failure, a blind-spot, call it what I may. Yet the only plea for mercy I can make is that the icy touch of those revenant fingers was too much for me. I am sitting on the ground, and ashes are on my head.
Please write kindly,
Yours ever,
[Charles]
Charles Prentice to Samuel Beckett, 17 NOVEMBER 1933
[UoR MS 2444/Letter Book 151/325]
Dear Sam,
Your forgiveness is like oil of absolution – but I cannot absolve myself for my failure. Thank you very, very much. If I may, I’d like to keep ‘Echo’s Bones’ a little longer, but we’ll go ahead with the setting up of the book. [. . .]
Ever yours,
Charles
Charles Prentice to Samuel Beckett, 4 DECEMBER 1933
[UoR MS 2444/Letter Book 152/82]
Dear Sam,
I return ‘Echo’s Bones’. To the boneyard with me! Proofs are streaming in, and you will have had a good lot by now. I hope you like the look of the page etc. [. . .]
Yours ever,
Charles
Charles Prentice to Samuel Beckett, 11 DECEMBER 1933
[UoR MS 2444/Letter Book 152/176]
Dear Sam,
Many thanks for the duplicates of the remainder of Belacqua’s proofs. I am glad you have put in that new little bit at the end. It is a decided improvement. Thank you too for the secret song of the groundsman – zoological vistas of a truly classico-romantic kind! I am proud to be a participator in his confidence. [. . .]
Ever,
Charles
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works Cited
SAMUEL BECKETT – ARCHIVAL MATERIAL
‘Echo’s Bones’, typescript, Baker Library, Dartmouth College.
‘Echo’s Bones’, typescript, A. J. Leventhal Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
‘German Diaries’ (6 notebooks), Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading.
‘Ici personne ne vient jamais’, unpublished prose text, typescript, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, MS1656/4.
Letters to Barbara Bray, Trinity College Library, Dublin, MS10948/1.
Letters to Ruby Cohn, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, MS5100.
Letters to Jocelyn Herbert, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, MS5200.
Letters to Thomas MacGreevy, Trinity College Library Dublin, MS10402.
Notes from Samuel Beckett’s lectures at Trinity College Dublin, taken by Rachel Dobbin (Burrows), Trinity College Library Dublin, MIC60.
Notes on Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, MS4123.
Notes on Dante, Trinity College Library Dublin, MS10966/1.
Notes on Philosophy, Trinity College Library Dublin, MS10967.
Notes on Psychology, Trinity College Library Dublin, MS10971/8.
Notes on the ‘Trueborn Jackeen’ and ‘Cow’, Trinity College Library Dublin, MS10971/2.
Transcription of Giacomo Leopardi’s poem ‘A Se Stesso’, Trinity College Library Dublin, 10971/9.
‘Whoroscope’ Notebook, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, MS3000.
SAMUEL BECKETT – PUBLICATIONS
‘A Piece of Monologue’ and ‘All That Fall’, in The Collected Shorter Plays (New York: Grove Press, 2010).
Collected Poems of Samuel Beckett, ed. Seán Lawlor and John Pilling (New York: Grove Press, 2014).
‘Company’, ‘Ill Seen, Ill Said’, and ‘Worstward Ho’, in Nohow On (New York: Grove Press, 1995).
Dream of Fair to Middling Women (Dublin: Black Cat Press, 1992).
Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment, ed. Ruby Cohn (New York: Grove Press, 1995).
Endgame and Act Without Words (New York: Grove Press, 2009).
‘The Expelled’, ‘The Calmative’, and ‘The End’, in Stories and Texts for Nothing (New York: Grove Press, 1994).
‘First Love’, ‘Fizzles’, and ‘Stirrings Still’, in The Complete Short Prose 1929–1989, ed. S. E. Gontarski (New York: Grove Press, 1997).
Krapp’s Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces (New York: Grove Press, 2009).
The Letters of Samuel Beckett, vol. 1: 1929–1940, ed. Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Lois More Overbeck, George Craig, and Dan Gunn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
The Letters of Samuel Beckett, vol. 2: 1941–1956, ed. George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn, and Lois More Overbeck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Mercier and Camier (New York: Grove Press, 2011).
More Pricks than Kicks (New York: Grove Press, 1995).
Murphy (New York: Grove Press, 2011).
‘Proust’ in The Poems, Short Fiction, and Criticism of Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 2007).
Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable (New York: Grove Press, 2009).
Waiting for Godot (New York: Grove Press, 2011).
Watt (New York: Grove Press, 2009).
OTHER WRITERS
Alfieri, Vittorio, The Autobiography of Vittorio Alfieri, Tragic Poet, ed. and trans. C. Edwards Lester (New York: Paine and Burgess, 1845).
Augustine, St, Confessions, trans. E. B. Pusey (London: Everyman’s Library, 1907) (chapter divisions however cited from Henry Chadwick’s edition, Oxford University Press, 1991).
Bourrienne, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de, Memoirs of Napoleon (London: Richard Bentley, 1836).
Bouvier, J. B., Dissertatio in Sextum Decalogi Praeceptum, et Supplementum ad Tractatum de Matrimonio (Paris: Facultatis Theologiae Bibliopolas, 1852).
Burton, Robert, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 3 vols, ed. Holbrook Jackson (London: Dent [Everyman’s Library], 1932).
Carlyle, Thomas, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (London: J. M. Dent, 1908).
Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Student’s Chaucer, being a Complete Edition of his Works, ed. W. W. Skeat (London and New York: Macmillan & Co., 1894).
Cooper, William M. [James Glass Bertram], Flagellation and the Flagellants (London: Chatto and Windus, 1887).
Dante, The Divine Comedy, ‘Temple Classics’ (London: J. M. Dent, 1900–1 (Inferno 1900; Purgatorio 1901; Paradiso 1901)).
Garnier, Pierre, Onanisme seul et à deux sous toutes ses formes et leurs consequences, 10th edn (Paris: Libraire Garnier Frères, n.d. [c.1895]).<
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Gaultier, Jules de, De Kant à Nietzsche, 10th edn (Paris: Mercure de France, 1930).
Giles, H. A., The Civilisation of China (London: Williams and Norgate, n.d. [1911]).
Homer, L’Odyssée, trans. Victor Bérard, 3 vols (Paris: Société d’édition ‘Les Belles Lettres’, 1925).
Inge, W. R., Christian Mysticism (London: Methuen, 1899).
Jeans, James, The Universe Around Us (Cambridge: University Press, 1929).
Kempis, Thomas à, The Imitation of Christ, trans. John K. Ingram (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Turner & Co., 1893).
Legouis, Émile, and Louis Cazamian, Histoire de la littérature anglaise (Paris: Hachette, 1929).
Lockhart, J. G., The History of Napoleon Bonaparte (London: William Tegg, n.d. (1867?)).
Mahaffy, J. P., Descartes (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1880).
Nordau, Max, Degeneration (London: William Heinemann, 1895).
Osler, William, The Principles and Practice of Medicine (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1892).
Praz, Mario, The Romantic Agony, trans. Angus Davidson, 2nd edn (London: Oxford University Press, 1954).
Renard, Jules, Le Journal de Jules Renard 1887–1910, 4 vols (Paris: François Bernouard, 1927).
Ruskin, John, Modern Painters (Sunnyside, Orpington and London: G. Allen, 1888).
Taylor, Jeremy, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Holy Dying (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1926).
Toynbee, Paget, Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898).
Ueberweg, Friedrich, A History of Philosophy, from Thales to the Present Time, vol. 1: History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, trans. George S. Morris (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1872).
Critical Studies of Samuel Beckett
Ackerley, Chris, ‘Samuel Beckett and the Bible: A Guide’, Journal of Beckett Studies 9.1 (Autumn 1999), 53–126.
——, ‘Demented Particulars’: The Annotated Murphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010).
——, Obscure Locks, Simple Keys: The Annotated Watt (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010).
Ackerley, Chris and S. E. Gontarski, The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 2006).
Admussen, Richard, The Samuel Beckett Manuscripts: A Study (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979).
Atik, Anne, How It Was: A Memoir of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 2001).
Campbell, Julie, ‘“Echo’s Bones” and Beckett’s Disembodied Voices’, in Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui 11: Samuel Beckett: Endlessness in the Year 2000/Fin sans Fin en l’an 2000, ed. Angela Moorjani and Carola Veit (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), 454–60.
Fernández, José Francisco, ‘“Echo’s Bones”: Samuel Beckett’s Lost Story of Afterlife’, Journal of the Short Story in English 52 (Spring 2009), 115–24.
Hunkeler, Thomas, Echos de l’ego dans l’oeuvre de Samuel Beckett (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997).
Lawlor, Seán, ‘Making a Noise to Drown an Echo: Allusion and Quotation in the Early Poems of Samuel Beckett’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 2008.
——, ‘“O Death Where Is Thy Sting?” Finding Words for the Big Ideas’, in Beckett and Death, ed. Steven Barfield, Matthew Feldman and Philip Tew (London: Continuum, 2009), 50–71.
McNaughton, James: ‘Samuel Beckett’s “Echo’s Bones”: Politics and Entailment in the Irish Free State’, Modern Fiction Studies (forthcoming).
Nixon, Mark, ‘“Belacqua redivivus”: Beckett’s short story “Echo’s Bones”’, Limit(e) Beckett 1 (2010).
Pilling, John, Beckett before Godot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
——, A Companion to Dream of Fair to Middling Women (Tallahassee, FL: Journal of Beckett Studies Books, 2004).
——, ‘The Uses of Enchantment: Beckett and the Fairy Tale’, Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui 21 (2009), 75–85.
——, Samuel Beckett’s More Pricks Than Kicks (London: Continuum, 2011).
Rabinovitz, Rubin, The Development of Samuel Beckett’s Fiction (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984).
Tajiri, Yoshiki, Samuel Beckett and the Prosthetic Body: The Organs and Senses in Modernism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
Van Hulle, Dirk: ‘Figures of Script: The Development of Beckett’s Short Prose and the “Aesthetic of Inaudibilities”’, in A Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. S. E. Gontarski (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 244–62.
——, and Mark Nixon: Samuel Beckett’s Library (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Table of Contents
Cover
ECHO'S BONES
Works by Samuel Beckett Published by Grove Press
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Note on the Text
Scan from Typescript
ECHO'S BONES
Annotations
Letters from Charles Prentice at Chatto & Windus to Samuel Beckett
Bibliography
Back Cover