Echo's Bones was intended by Samuel Beckett to form the 'recessional' or end-piece of his early collection of interrelated stories, More Pricks Than Kicks , published in 1934. The story was written at the request of the publisher, but was held back from inclusion in the published volume. Echo's Bones has remained unpublished to this day, and the present edition will situate the work in terms of its biographical context, its Joycean influences, and as a vital link in the evolution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. The editor, Mark Nixon, is director of the Beckett International Foundation at the University of Reading."Blending fairy tales, gothic dreams and classical myth, 'Echo's Bones' is in parts a fantastical story replete with giants, tree-houses, mandrakes, ostriches and mushrooms, drawing on a tradition of folklore as popularised by WB Yeats and the Brothers Grimm."