"Dante and the Lobster" was originally published in the collection More Pricks than Kicks, one of Beckett's earliest published works. At the time of the book's publication, Beckett was almost completely unknown. He had published a poem, "Whoroscope," and essays on Joyce and Proust, but this book marks Beckett's entry into what became his real career. Chatto and Windus, Beckett's London publishers, tried to interest American publishers in the collection but were unsuccessful, so the book appeared only in England.

The collection received reviews that were quite favorable, especially for a first book. Gerald Gould of the Observer remarked that the book was "dry, harsh . . . not untouched by beauty, though betrayed by an artificial whimsicality and unnecessary obscurity." Time and Tide's Richard Sunne and the London Times Literary Supplement dismissed the book as an imitation of Joyce, but another reviewer, Arthur Calder-Marshall of the Spectator, argued...