(...) when Beckett consented to publication [of his letters], he made a stipulation – a stipulation endorsed by the Beckett estate and adhered to by the present editors – that his letters would be "[reduced] to those passages only having bearing on [his] work."
The problem is of course that in the case of a great writer, or a writer exposed to such close critical scrutiny as Beckett has been, every word he pens can be read as having a bearing on his work. No doubt the day will arrive when, all legal restrictions having expired, the distinction between literary and private will be dropped and the entire archive thrown open.
Den sydafrikanske forfatter J.M. Coetzee i sin anmeldelse af første bind af The Letters of Samuel Beckett" in The New York Review of Books, April 30, 2099, s. 16.