The World of Lawrence
Miller’s sustained appreciation of the friend and writer at the other end of these letters.
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The Durrell–Miller Letters, 1935–1980
by Lawrence Durrell, Henry Miller
Forty-five years and nearly a million words — the expanded correspondence that restored lost letters and passages cut from the 1963 selection.
- 1988
- 528
About Lawrence Durrell
About the volume
In 1935 the twenty-three-year-old Lawrence Durrell wrote Henry Miller an ecstatic letter about Tropic of Cancer. Miller answered, and the exchange continued until his death in 1980. Ian S. MacNiven’s 1988 edition makes an extensive selection from a correspondence approaching one million words, restoring previously lost letters and passages omitted from the earlier Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller: A Private Correspondence. Both editions belong to one publication history, with their different editorial scopes kept clear. (Letters — nothing to spoil.)
The volume, in more detail
The correspondence begins with a reader finding the writer he needs. Durrell, then living on Corfu and still years from The Alexandria Quartet, praised Tropic of Cancer in 1935; Miller recognized an ideal reader and replied. What followed was not a short fan exchange but a working literary friendship conducted across four and a half decades.
The letters move through the Villa Seurat circle, the Second World War, Miller’s return to America, Durrell’s diplomatic and island years, and the long composition of both writers’ major books. Each becomes the other’s reader, promoter, confessor, and occasional critic. Geography separates them for most of the period; the mailbox supplies continuity.
George Wickes’s 1963 Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller: A Private Correspondence offered the first large public selection, covering the correspondence through 1959. MacNiven’s 1988 Durrell–Miller Letters is not simply a retitled reprint. New Directions states that almost half its contents had not appeared in the earlier volume, including recovered letters and passages previously cut; its chronology also extends to Miller’s final year.
What the letters cover
The opening years trace Durrell’s response to Tropic of Cancer, the meeting of the writers’ circles, and the publications and arguments that grew around the Villa Seurat. The war scatters the group and turns the exchange into a long-distance workshop linking Corfu, Egypt, Paris, California, and later Durrell’s homes around the Mediterranean and in southern France.
The later letters follow diverging kinds of fame, marriages and losses, changing health, paintings, manuscripts, and the repeated business of urging one another to keep working. Read continuously, the selection becomes the dual creative biography MacNiven described: two writers aging inside the same conversation.
Themes and analysis
Hamlet among the packing
Durrell's early-November 1936 letter makes the disorder of packing a setting for critical thought rather than an obstacle to it. His reading of Hamlet separates the prince's public obligations from an inner life that those obligations cannot contain. But the letter is also a record of an argument still being made: he asks Miller to tell him whether it makes sense and to keep the note for an essay he has not yet written. Correspondence gives the provisional idea both a reader and a place to survive. The sweeping judgments are Durrell's, not settled conclusions about Shakespeare; their force belongs partly to the excitement of trying them on a trusted correspondent.
The only copy of The Black Book
In the letter of 8 March 1937, reproduced in The Paris Review's earlier selection, Miller's extravagant response to The Black Book quickly becomes a practical problem of preservation. The only typescript is unnumbered, and sending it onward might endanger the work he wants others to read. His proposal to arrange and pay for copies translates admiration into labor, money and responsibility. He still asks Durrell what to do, leaving the decision with the author. Literary friendship here is neither praise alone nor a mentor taking possession of a younger writer's work: it depends on making the manuscript shareable without making it disposable.
Why we recommend it
The friendship at full scale
Few correspondences run from a first fan letter through forty-five years of books, marriages, wars, arguments, visits, and old age.
A workshop conducted by mail
Each man becomes the other’s first serious reader, so the letters preserve books while they are still decisions rather than finished monuments.
The expanded edition matters
Recovered letters and restored passages change the texture of the relationship; this is why both editorial histories belong on one page.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Lawrence Durrell
The young admirer who becomes Miller’s ideal reader, closest literary ally, critic, and correspondent for forty-five years.
Henry Miller
The established Paris writer who answers one intelligent fan letter and finds the reader, advocate, and friend he keeps for the rest of his life.
Timeline
1935
Durrell writes to Miller from Corfu after reading Tropic of Cancer; Miller replies.
1937
Durrell visits the Villa Seurat circle in Paris, turning the correspondence into an in-person literary alliance.
1963
George Wickes edits Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller: A Private Correspondence, selecting letters through 1959.
1980
The exchange ends with Miller’s death.
1988
New Directions publishes Ian S. MacNiven’s expanded 528-page Durrell–Miller Letters.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- E. P. Dutton / Faber and Faber
- 1963
- Paperback
- New Directions
- 1988
- 9780811210430
- Paperback
- New Directions
- 2007
- 9780811217309
Reader reviews
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The Colossus of Maroussi
The Greek journey made possible by Durrell’s invitation and threaded through the early correspondence.
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Letters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977
Anaïs Nin’s side of the Villa Seurat triangle, addressed to the same correspondent.
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The Durrell–Miller Letters, 1935–1980: frequently asked questions
How did Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller meet?
Durrell first wrote to Miller from Corfu in 1935 after reading Tropic of Cancer. They met in person later, and the correspondence continued until Miller’s death in 1980.
Is The Durrell–Miller Letters the complete correspondence?
No. It is an extensive representative selection from a surviving exchange New Directions describes as nearly one million words.
How is the 1988 book different from A Private Correspondence?
George Wickes’s 1963 book selected letters through 1959. Ian S. MacNiven’s 1988 edition extends the story to 1980, adds recovered and previously unpublished letters, and restores passages omitted from the earlier selection.
Who edited The Durrell–Miller Letters?
Ian S. MacNiven edited the expanded 1988 volume. George Wickes edited the earlier Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller: A Private Correspondence.
What years do The Durrell–Miller Letters cover?
The expanded collection covers 1935 to 1980, from the beginning of their correspondence to the year of Miller’s death.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document The Durrell–Miller Letters, 1935–1980, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Durrell–Miller Letters 1935–1980
Official recordNew Directions PublishingUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
2The Durrell–Miller Letters, 1935–1980 — catalogue record
Official recordCiNii Books, National Institute of InformaticsUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
3Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller: A Private Correspondence — edition record
Official recordOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
4Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller: A Private Correspondence
LettersUsed forFirst-person evidence and historical context used in preparing the The Durrell–Miller Letters, 1935–1980 page.
5Lawrence Durrell to Henry Miller, early November 1936 — letter excerpt
WebsiteThe American Reader, crediting the 1988 New Directions selectionUsed forThe new Hamlet reading uses the presented early-November 1936 excerpt, explicitly credited to the 1988 New Directions selection. Its bracketed letter date is less precise than the webpage title; no original book pagination is claimed.
6An Exchange of Letters
PeriodicalThe Paris Review, issue 29, Winter–Spring 1963, 1963Used forThe manuscript reading uses Miller's visible letter of 8 March 1937 in The Paris Review's 1963 selection. Its exact inclusion and pagination in the expanded 1988 volume were not independently collated; the two publication histories remain distinct.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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