SOURCE: Gontarski, S. E. “From Unabandoned Works Samuel Beckett's Short Prose.” In Samuel Beckett: The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989, edited by S. E. Gontarski, pp. xi-xxxii. New York: Grove Press, 1995.

In the following essay, Gontarski assesses Beckett's achievements as a short fiction writer.

While short fiction was a major creative outlet for Samuel Beckett, it has heretofore attracted only a minor readership. Such neglect is difficult to account for, given that Beckett wrote short fiction for the entirety of his creative life and his literary achievement and innovation are as apparent in the short works as in his more famous novels and plays, if succinctly so. Christopher Ricks, for one, has suggested that the 1946 short story “The End” is “the best possible introduction to Beckett's fiction,”¹ and writing in the Irish Times (11 March 1995), literary editor John Banville has called “First Love” “the most nearly perfect short story ever...