ENOCH SOAMES, a short story by Max Beerbohm has only two or three degrees of recursion, but still seems worth mentioning. I stumbled across a mention of it just a few minutes ago (in Littlewood’s Mathematician’s Miscellania of all places – he writes “Reflexiveness flickers delicately in and out of the latter part of Max Beerbohm’s story Enoch Soames”) and Googled for it only because of this thread. It’s 11,000 words – is that typical for a short story? – but I enjoyed it.
As an extra level of recursion, I remember being mystified (never having heard of Soames) 16 years ago to read an account that Soames did indeed visit the British Museum’s reading room as predicted 80-odd years earlier!
The story has been mentioned at SDMB before in threads titled
Fictional references that became true
Proof that time travel is impossible?
What’s your favorite Short Story?
Famous People Who NEVER Existed!
For example: