Stand Still Like the Hummingbird
The larger late essay collection to read before this small-press miscellany.
Read our take
Gliding into the Everglades and Other Essays
by Henry Miller
Six late essays moving from the Florida wetlands to Picasso, Cabeza de Vaca, Marie Corelli, a Japanese stranger, and Jack Nicholson.
- 1977
- 76
- Exuberant
- Wry
- Atmospheric
- episodic
- autobiographical
- voice-driven
About Henry Miller
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeLost Pleiade Press issued this six-essay collection in 1977. Its contents are unusually legible as a map of Miller’s late curiosity: “Gliding into the Everglades,” “The Mystery of the Japanese Woman,” “Picasso at 90,” “Cabeza de Vaca,” “Marie Corelli,” and “On Seeing Jack Nicholson for the First Time.” Nature writing, portrait, reading memory, and celebrity encounter sit together without pretending to be a unified argument. It is a compact late-career sampler rather than a new memoir or novel.
The story, in more detail
The title essay supplies the physical journey. Miller’s encounter with the Everglades becomes an exercise in surrendering ordinary scale and tempo. The remaining pieces travel by attention instead — toward an unidentified Japanese woman, a ninety-year-old Picasso, the sixteenth-century explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the once-famous novelist Marie Corelli, and actor Jack Nicholson.
The collection appeared in Lake Oswego, Oregon, in hardcover and wrappered issues. Indiana University’s catalogue records all six contents, seventy-six pages, one illustration, and the two original edition identifiers. Its small-press form is part of the appeal: a deliberately miscellaneous cabinet of late Miller enthusiasms.
Themes and analysis
Six essays with different subjects
The collection contains Gliding into the Everglades, The Mystery of the Japanese Woman, Picasso at 90, Cabeza de Vaca, Marie Corelli, and On Seeing Jack Nicholson for the First Time. These are six separate essays, not chapters in a sustained account of Florida.
The range is unusually wide even for Miller: a painter, a film actor, a novelist, an explorer, and a discussion of Japanese women share the book. The table of contents makes clear that an author’s interests, rather than a single subject or historical period, hold the collection together.
The people behind the titles
Pablo Picasso was the Spanish artist whose long career made old age and continued invention inseparable subjects. Jack Nicholson was an American film actor. Marie Corelli was a popular English novelist, while Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a sixteenth-century Spanish explorer.
These figures are subjects of Miller’s attention, not a cast interacting in one story. Nor does a named subject necessarily indicate a personal meeting. The Nicholson title describes seeing an actor for the first time; it should not be expanded into an undocumented friendship.
A late collection and an earlier reputation
Lost Pleiade Press published the book in Lake Oswego, Oregon, in 1977. The edition has seventy-six pages and an illustration. Miller was in his eighties when the volume appeared, decades after the Paris books that made his reputation.
The date places the collection alongside his later portraits and short reflections. It does not prove that all six pieces were composed at the same time. A collection’s publication date and the dates of its component essays are different kinds of information.
Reading the collection
The appeal is the chance to follow Miller’s attention across unfamiliar as well as famous subjects. A reader coming from Tropic of Cancer will encounter a different scale: a handful of short essays instead of a long autobiographical narrative.
The Mystery of the Japanese Woman should be approached as Miller’s individual view, shaped by his period and experience. Its broad title does not make the essay an authoritative account of Japanese women. That distinction lets readers assess his observations without confusing personal writing with social research.
Why we recommend it
A compact late sampler
Six brief pieces show how quickly Miller could move between landscape, books, painting, history, and film.
A revealing contents list
Picasso, Corelli, Cabeza de Vaca, Nicholson, and the Everglades make a characteristically improbable company.
What this book explores
Timeline
1971
Picasso turns ninety, the occasion named by one of the collection’s essays.
1977
Lost Pleiade Press publishes the six essays in a seventy-six-page collection.
Book editions
- Hardcover
- Lost Pleiade Press
- 1977
- 9780915270019
- Paperback
- Lost Pleiade Press
- 1977
- 9780915270026
Reader reviews
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Read our takeGliding into the Everglades and Other Essays: frequently asked questions
What essays are in Gliding into the Everglades?
Six: the title essay, “The Mystery of the Japanese Woman,” “Picasso at 90,” “Cabeza de Vaca,” “Marie Corelli,” and “On Seeing Jack Nicholson for the First Time.”
When was it published?
Lost Pleiade Press published the seventy-six-page collection in Lake Oswego, Oregon, in 1977.
Is it a travel book?
Not as a whole. The title essay is place-centered, but the remaining pieces are portraits and reflections.
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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 Gliding into the Everglades and Other Essays, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Gliding into the Everglades and Other Essays
EssaysHenry Miller, 1977Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Gliding into the Everglades and Other Essays — catalogue record
Official recordIndiana University LibrariesUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
3Henry Miller — author page and selected bibliography
Official recordGrove AtlanticUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
4The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller
BiographySimon & Schuster, 1991Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to Gliding into the Everglades and Other Essays.
5Henry Miller: A Life
BiographyW. W. Norton, 1991Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to Gliding into the Everglades and Other Essays.
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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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