The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989

by Samuel Beckett

  When actor David Warrilow was performing the stage adaptation of Beckett’s story The Lost Ones in Germany, a literary critic approached him after the show to suggest that the dimensions of the cylinder, “fifty metres round and eighteen high,” could not be correct. If the total surface of the cylinder (or even the total wall or “mural” surface) were to be 80,000 square centimeters, as all book versions of the story have it, then the cylinder would have to be minuscule. Warrilow replied that he would see Beckett himself the following day and pose the question of the cylinder’s dimensions to him directly. Beckett acknowledged that “the figure eighteen was indeed a most regrettable error.” Some time later when Warrilow was making a film version of the story, he checked with Beckett a second time and Beckett confirmed the figure of sixteen meters, adding, “After all, you can’t play fast and loose with pi” (see “From David Warrilow,” As No Other Dare Fail: For Samuel Beckett on His 80th Birthday by His Friends and Admirers [London: John Calder (Publishers) Ltd., 1986; and New York: Riverrun Press, 1986, 87-88]).

  In fact, the original French text prints the dimensions as sixteen meters high, as does the American publication in Evergreen Review No. 96 (Spring 1973): 41—64. The Evergreen Review edition, however, presents the total surface area as “twelve million” square centimeters, while the French edition, Le Dépeupleur, has it at “quatre-vingt mille centimètres carrés” (80,000 square centimeters), an erroneous surface area for a cylinder of either sixteen or eighteen meters high with a circumference of fifty meters. The Evergreen Review version seems to contain the correct figures. If one includes the area of the ceiling and floor of a cylinder sixteen by fifty meters, the total surface would be about 12 million square centimeters—eight million for the wall surface and 2 million each for the areas of ceiling and floor. Beckett, or rather the narrator, confirms these figures in the third paragraph of the story: “Inside a cylinder fifty metres round and sixteen high for the sake of harmony or a total surface of roughly twelve hundred square metres [or 12 million square centimeters, i.e., including ceiling and floor] of which eight hundred [square meters or 8 million square centimeters] mural [i.e., wall area].” All book versions of the story, however, present the total surface area on the opening page as 80,000 centimeters square. In addition, both British and American book versions of the story, the latter simply photo-offset from the British edition (London: Calder and Boyars, 1972) in which the errors above were introduced, transpose the numbers in the following: “The short queue is not necessarily the most rapid and such a one starting tenth may well find himself first before such another starting fifth assuming of course they start together” (Evergreen Review, p. 58). With the figures reversed, the sentence makes no sense, but the transposed figures appear in all British and American book editions. In Le Dépeupleur (p. 42) the figures accord with those of the Evergreen Review edition. The Evergreen Review edition, however, contains one variant. It drops the number from the following: “The more so as the two storms have this in common” (p. 56). The current publication restores the original French and American figure of sixteen meters for the cylinder’s height but uses the total surface area of 12 million square centimeters for the cylinder, the figure that is mathematically accurate and that appears in the Evergreen Review edition. The current text as well has the queue with ten people move faster than the queue with five people as it does in the Evergreen Review and in Le Dépeupleur, and retains the number of storms at “two” as it is in all book versions. In addition, “forgo” (do without) has replaced “forego” (go before) in “no searcher can readily forgo the ladder.”

  “The Image,” a short piece written on the way to Comment c’est (How It Is), was originally published in French in the inaugural issue of a magazine called simply X: A Quarterly Review, edited by David Wright and Patrick Swift. An English version first appeared in As the Story Was Told: Uncollected and Late Prose (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1990), 31—40, but it was met with much suspicion by readers and scholars who argued, on the basis of internal evidence, that the unacknowledged translation could not have been Samuel Beckett’s. Writing in the Times Literary Supplement of 26 October–1 November 1990, for instance, John Crombie points out: “Mr. Calder informs us that during the writing of Comment c’est, into which passages of L’Image, suitably reworked, were incorporated, Beckett moved from French to English and back—seeming to suggest that the text of ‘The Image’ is wholly by Beckett himself. But even a cursory comparison of L’Image and Comment c’est reveals that the text of ‘The Image’ is cobbled together from scraps taken, quite properly, from How It Is—i.e., using Beckett’s own English—and scraps very definitely not from How It Is, upon which the nameless translator’s skills have been brought, with disconcerting results, to bear. The resulting unevenness, to use no unkinder word, has been compounded, to put it mildly, by the fact that in many of the passages where L’lmage and Comment c’est coincide and Beckett’s own renderings were available, these have been disdained, or perhaps not even noticed, the translator offering his or her own approximations in place of Beckett’s self-translation.” “L’Image,” then, was retranslated by Edith Fournier for this collection, and she notes that “Numerous similarities do occur” between “L’Image” and Comment c’est, “and in such cases the elements of the author’s own translation of the final version as it appears in How It Is have here been closely respected.”

  The short prose work “neither” was originally published in the Journal of Beckett Studies No. 4 (Spring 1979) with line breaks suggestive of a poem. During the editing process, moreover, a word was dropped from the eighty-seven-word work. The omission was evidently not immediately noticed, for the correction did not appear until issue No. 6 in the Autumn of 1980, where, in his “Editorial,” John Pilling noted, “It is very much regretted that the word ‘neared’ was accidentally omitted from the end of the fourth line of the text neither printed in issue 4 at post page-proof stage beyond the control of the editors” (p. 6). When the British publisher of Beckett’s fiction and poetry, John Calder, was about to publish the work in the Collected Poems, Beckett resisted because he considered it a piece of prose, a story. As John Calder says in a letter to the Times Literary Supplement (24—30 August 1990), he had “originally intended to put [“neither”] in the Collected Poems. We did not do so, because Beckett at the last moment said that it was not a poem and should not be there” (p. 895). Subsequently, it was omitted inadvertently from The Collected Shorter Prose 1945—1980 (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1984), but printed in a more corrupt version in the posthumous As the Story Was Told: Uncollected and Later Prose (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd.; and New York: Riverrun Press, 1990). The printing was corrupted not only by the introduction of erroneous information (the story, identified in the Journal of Beckett Studies as “written by Samuel Beckett in September 1976 to be set to music by Morton Feldman,” is described in As the Story Was Told as having been “[w]ritten for composer Morton Feldman, 1962”) but when “neither” was finally collected not only was the title capitalized, but instead of including the word missing from the Journal of Beckett Studies printing, a copy editor’s query marking the place of the lost word was taken by the printer as an addition to the text and was retained in publication; line six (in the collected edition) then reads, “doors once? gently close, once turned” instead of “doors once neared gently close, once turned….” Moreover, since the piece is a work of prose, there is no question of retaining the line endings of either the Journal of Beckett Studies or the As the Story Was Told texts.

  Stirrings Still contains the misspelling of “withersoever” for “whithersoever” on page 4 of the de luxe edition. Critic Gerry Dukes pointed out the typographical error in his review of the volume in the Irish Times (15 April 1989). When the Irish actor Barry McGovern brought the error to Beckett’s attention, the author made the correction in McGovern’s copy. The error is, however, reproduced in the American trade edition by North Star Line b
ut corrected in the version printed in As the Story Was Told (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd. and New York: Riverrun Press, 1990). The Calder edition, however, introduces a new error: “whereabouts” for the original and correct “whenceabouts” (p. 122). Thanks to Gerry Dukes for these details.

  “The Capital of the Ruins,” a short piece of reportage on the Irish Hospital in St. L6 written for broadcast by Irish radio, has been shrouded in mystery, confusion, and error since its discovery amid the archives of Radio Telefis Éireann in 1983 and its publication in 1986. It was first published “in full incorporating all the manuscript changes in Beckett’s hand,” by Eoin O’Brien in The Beckett Country (Monkstown, Ireland: The Black Cat Press, 1986), 333—37. The piece was subsequently published that same year in As No Other Dare Fail: For Samuel Beckett on His 80th Birthday by His Friends and Admirers (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1986), 71-76 with a brief commentary by Dougald McMillan, who also claims that the script is “published here for the first time” (p. 71). Although McMillan rightly identifies the quirky title of the piece with a booklet of photographs of the bombed-out city of St. Lô entitled St. Lô, Capital des Ruines, 5 et 7 Juin 1944, he claims that the piece “was read by Beckett on Radio Erin on 10 June 1946,” the date in Beckett’s hand on the final page of the three-sheet typescript. There is, however, no evidence for that claim. On the contrary, Dairmuid Breathnach, Chief Librarian of Radio Telefis Éireann, notes in correspondence with the editor: “The radio logs for a period of 18 months after 10 June 1946 have been examined but we have been unable to trace a date of transmission. There is no file of correspondence with Beckett in our written archives and there is no entry for Beckett in the fee cards of the period.” The probability is that the piece, more than likely commissioned by Riobárd O Faracháin, general features officer at RTE (and member of the Board of the Abbey Theatre for thirty years), whose initials appear on the first page of the typescript, was never broadcast.

  Both English texts cited above, moreover, include all the autograph emendations to the typed text as if they were Beckett’s solely, but clearly those emendations are in several hands. I queried Beckett about the manuscript and the revisions to it in July 1983 just after the manuscript’s discovery, and he wrote back on 23 July 1983: “No memory whatever of the St. Lô piece. As you say it seems to have been improved here and there by some third party—or parties.” The “improvements” are stylistic rather than substantive, but nonetheless Beckett’s exact prose ought to be recovered and retained wherever possible. In the first case the word “left” was added by another hand in “There was not enough linoleum left in France to do more than this.” The second alteration is syntactically similar. The intrusion affects the first sentence in the second paragraph, which as published reads, “… and perhaps even to those of you listening to me.” Beckett actually wrote the more self-deprecating, “… and perhaps even to those listening to the present circumlocution.” The current text restores Beckett’s original prose in both instances cited above.

  Bibliography of Short Prose in English

  The distinction between a discrete short story and a fragment of a novel is not always clear in Beckett’s work. For the purposes of this bibliography, however, if an excerpt is identified as part of a longer work in its title, it is not included. A partial list of portions of longer works is appended to the bibliography itself.

  “All Strange Away,” Journal of Beckett Studies, No. 3 (summer 1978): 19.

  “All Strange Away,” Stereo Headphones, Nos. 8, 9, 10 (1982): 3. [Facsimile typescript.]

  “All Strange Away,” Rockaby and Other Short Pieces (New York: Grove Press, 1981).

  All Strange Away (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1979).

  “Assumption,” transition 16—17 (June 1929): 268—71. [Reprinted along with the poem “Malacoda” in transition workshop ed. by Eugene Jolas (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1949): 41—44.]

  “As the story was told,” Gunter Eich zum Gedächtnis (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1975), 10–[13]. [Reprinted in As the Story Was Told: Uncollected and Late Prose, 103—07.]

  “As the story was told,” Chicago Review 33.2 (1982): 76—77.

  As the Story Was Told: Uncollected and Late Prose (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1990; New York: Riverrun Press, 1990).

  “The Calmative,” Evergreen Review 11.47 (June 1967): 46—49, 93—95.

  “The Capital of the Ruins,” The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett’s Ireland (Monkstown, Ireland: The Black Cat Press [in association with Faber and Faber], 1986), 333—37.

  “The Capital of the Ruins,” As No Other Dare Fail: For Samuel Beckett on His 80th Birthday by His Friends and Admirers (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1986; New York: Riverrun Press, 1986).

  “A Case in a Thousand,” The Bookman 86 (August 1934): 241–42.

  Collected Shorter Prose: 1945-1980 (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1984).

  “Dante and the Lobster,” This Quarter 5 (December 1932): 222—36. [One of the More Pricks Than Kicks (1934) stories.]

  “Dante and the Lobster,” Evergreen Review 1.1 (1957): 24—36. [As above.]

  “The End,” Merlin (Summer 1954). [Translated from the French by Richard Seaver in collaboration with the author.]

  “The End,” Evergreen Review 4.15 (November-December 1960): 22-41. [As above.]

  “Enough,” First Love and Other Shorts (New York: Grove Press, 1974).

  “The Expelled,” Evergreen Review 6.22 (January—February 1962): 8—20. [Dated 1946. Translated from the French by Richard Seaver in collaboration with the author.]

  The Expelled and Other Novellas (Harmondsworth, England; New York: Penguin Books, 1980).

  “La Falaise,” Celui qui ne peut se servir de mots (Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1975).

  “Faux Départ,” Karlsbuch 1 (June 1965): 1—5.

  First Love (London: Calder and Boyars, Ltd., 1973). [First publication of First Love written in 1946 along with the other “Stories” or “Nouvelles.”]

  “First Love,” First Love and Other Shorts (New York: Grove Press, 1974). [Includes “From an Abandoned Work,” “Enough,” “Imagination Dead Imagine,” and “Ping” as well as “First Love.”]

  “Fizzle 1,” Tri Quarterly (In the wake of the Wake) 38 (winter 1977): 163—67. Reprinted in In the Wake of the Wake, ed. by David Hayman and Elliott Anderson (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978). [“Fizzle 1” designated according to the order in the original Grove Press edition, i.e., “He is barehead.” See also below.]

  Fizzles (New York: Grove Press, 1976). [Eight stories or “fizzles” numbered, not titled, in the American edition except for numbers 3, “Afar a bird”; 7, the only one originally written in English, “Still”; and 8, “For to end yet again,” the title story to the French and British editions, Pour finir encore et autre foirades and For to End Yet Again and Other Fizzles, respectively. In addition, the latter two each print the stories in an order different from the Grove text.]

  “For to End Yet Again,” New Writing and Writers 17 (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1975 [or 1976 as Calder says]), 9—14.

  For to End Yet Again and Other Fizzles (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1976). [Unlike the American and French editions, the British edition adopts titles for all eight of the stories: “For to end yet again,” “Still,” “He is barehead,” “Horn came always,” “Afar a Bird,” “I gave up before birth,” “Closed place” (mistakenly entitled “Closed Space” in this volume—”Se Voir” in French), and “Old earth.” Moreover, each edition, American, British, and French, presents the stories in a different order.]

  Four Novellas (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1977). [Includes: “First Love,” “The Expelled,” “The Calmative,” and “The End.” “First Love” is then finally grouped here with the three other stories from Stories and Texts for Nothing or No’s Knife.]

  “From an Abandoned Work,” Trinity News: A Dublin University Weekly, 3 (
7 July 1956): 4.

  “From an Abandoned Work,” Evergreen Review 1.3 (1957): 83—91.

  From an Abandoned Work (London: Faber and Faber, 1958). [First broadcast by the BBC in the Third Programme on 14 December 1957, spoken by Patrick Magee.]

  “From an Abandoned Work,” Breath and Other Shorts (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), 39-48.

  “From an Abandoned Work,” First Love and Other Shorts (New York: Grove Press, 1974).

  “From an Unabandoned Work,” Evergreen Review 4.14 (September—October 1960): 58—65. [A portion of the novel How It Is.]

  “Heard in the Dark 1,” New Writing and Writers 17 (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1979). [An early extract from the novel Company.]

  “Heard in the Dark 2,” Journal of Beckett Studies, No. 5 (autumn 1979). [As above.]

  “L’Image,” X: A Quarterly Review 1.1 (November 1959): 35—37. [“An extract written on the way to Comment c’est” (How It Is). See “A Note on the Texts” and see also James Knowlson’s letter to The Times (23 May 1988).]

  “Imagination Dead Imagine,” Evergreen Review 10.39 (February 1966): 48—49.

  “Imagination Dead Imagine,” Sunday Times, 7 November 1965, p. 48.

  Imagination Dead Imagine, (London: John Calder [Publishers] Ltd., 1965). [The “Other Works” page announces a forthcoming volume as Stories and Texts for Nothing, but the volume with the addition of four more stories is finally published by Calder as No’s Knife, q.v.]

  “Imagination Dead Imagine,” Evergreen Review 10.39 (February 1966): 48—49.

  “Imagination Dead Imagine,” First Love and Other Shorts (New York: Grove Press, 1974). [Reprinted in I can’t go on, I’ll go on, ed. by Richard Seaver (New York: Grove Press, 1976), 551—54.]