MILLER HENRY Group of 9 items Signed or Signed and Inscribed

Sale 2155 - Lot 243

Price Realized: $ 5,760

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000

MILLER, HENRY. Group of 9 items Signed, or Signed and Inscribed, each to his lawyer and friend Samuel S. Goldberg, including 7 letters concerning his Tropic of Cancer, Carl Van Vechten, Trotsky, Anaïs Nin, Russian Jews in America, Churchill and the War, and other literary and personal subjects. Some with the original envelope. Together 10 pages, mostly 4to; condition varies. Vp, [circa 1943]

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ALS, from a postscript: "I was shown the crack about me in the 'New Masses.' I haven't seen tho' what provoked it. The only thing of Trotsky's I've read thus far--apropos of my 'following'--was the article on Céline in Atlantic Monthly. It was pretty feeble--a high school boy might have written it." Hollywood, 20 January 1943.
ALS: "If Mme Litvinov[?] even comments on the 'Tropic of Cancer' I wish you'd let me know. I didn't understand clearly why she wanted to read it. Certainly not with any thought of recommending it for translation into Russian, no? . . ." Chicago, "Sunday" [3 July 1944: from postmark]
ALS: ". . . Just had a note from Carl Van Vechten saying he was listing it for [the] Herald-Tribune as one of [the] three best books of the year. Last year it was Capricorn he gave." New York, "Monday."
ALS: ". . . About returning to N.Y. I intend to leave as soon as I have the fare. . . . I feel like a rat in a trap--and I'm going to bust loose." 8vo, yellow paper. Np, "Monday."
TLS, with holograph corrections: ". . . I finished reading Koestler's Darkness at Noon. I was quite impressed with this book, wondered as to the validity of the author's viewpoint (whether based on experience with the Party or simply wish-fulfillment), wondered too if the prototype for his chief character was Trotsky . . . .
". . . There is an amazing confession (to Etzel) about his Jewish birth, his fight with himself, and his final desire to do something for the Jews--after mixing with the Russian Jews in America. . . ." Los Angeles, 16 October [1942].
TLS: "I'm at a point in my American book where I go into a little rhapsody about the great law-breakers. I want to expand it . . . . I want to include about fifty illustrious names of all ages. My line starts off thus: 'Socrates wasn't diminished by imprisonment, nor Dante by banishment, etc.'" Np, "Friday Afternoon."
TLS: ". . . I wonder seriously whether you did like my manuscript or not. I doubt very much that you did, somehow. I am at the point where I am getting confused. Maybe the whole thing is just an abortion. Anyway, I am still writing. And knowing that it is hopeless. . . ." Np, "Monday."
Also: Autograph Postcard Signed. New York, 14 December 1941 [from postmark] "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna," a pamphlet Signed and Inscribed. 8vo, wrappers. New York, 1942; inscription: Np, nd.