SOURCE: Introduction to Childhood Is Not Forever, Doubleday & Company, 1969, pp. vii-viii.

In this essay, Farrell answers those critics who question autobiographical elements of his work.

I began, not as a novelist, but as a short story writer. For more than two years after I had decided to become a writer, I worked to write publishable short stories. Long before I had completed the first volume of the Studs Lonigan trilogy, my short stories had received recognition.

Ezra Pound tried to get me a publisher for four of my stories which he himself had selected. Had he succeeded, Young Lonigan would not have been my first book.

Whit Burnett published two of my short stories. One of them, "A Casual Incident," has remained popular.

And H. L. Mencken had accepted for publication "Helen, I Love You" before Young Lonigan had appeared.

Most of the stories in this selection were...