A Literate Passion
The triangle's first published correspondence — Miller's side of the same circle.
Read our take
Letters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977
by Anaïs Nin
Four decades of letters to the third member of the Villa Seurat triangle, from the Booster days to the last year of her life.
- 2020
About Anaïs Nin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeLawrence Durrell arrived in the Villa Seurat orbit in 1937 — young, brilliant, fresh from Corfu with The Black Book in manuscript — and completed the triangle with Nin and Henry Miller that the little magazines and imprints of the late Paris years ran on. Nin's letters to him span forty years: the prewar collaborations, the long divergence of their careers, and the late decades' steady, sparring friendship. Published in 2020, the collection is the record of her most literary friendship after Miller. (Letters — nothing to spoil.)
The story, in more detail
The Villa Seurat's last act had three principals. Durrell came to Paris in 1937 drawn by Tropic of Cancer, and the trio — Miller, Nin, Durrell — became the engine of the circle's final projects: the Booster and Delta magazines, the Villa Seurat Series that published Nin's Winter of Artifice, and the running three-way argument about writing that all three carried on for decades. Nin's letters begin there, in the collaborative blaze before the war scattered everyone.
The correspondence's long middle tracks two careers moving apart — Durrell toward the Alexandria Quartet's fame in the fifties while Nin's fiction waited, then the reversal as the Diary made her famous in the decade his star settled — with the friendship surviving the asymmetries in both directions. The letters run to 1977, the year of her death, and close one of the last open files of the Paris circle's correspondence.
What's inside
Forty years of Nin's letters to Durrell: the 1937–1939 Villa Seurat collaborations — the magazines, the Series, The Black Book's launch; wartime and postwar letters across continents; the decades of diverging fame, with candid literary argument in both directions; and the late correspondence of two survivors of the same vanished Paris, running to the final year of her life.
Themes and analysis
A friendship before fame
In the letters quoted in Richard Pine's foreword, Nin recognizes Durrell's writing through its sensory force. Her responses to The Black Book and, later, Justine connect literary achievement with touch, movement and depth rather than reducing it to an argument or a plot. The later praise also revives her image of the young writer she knew. Reading thus becomes a form of reunion across time. The alliance rests on this capacity to recognize an imaginative energy in another person's work, even when their own writing follows a different path.
The correspondence endures
Pine places Nin's private objections to Monsieur beside the praise she sent Durrell. That contrast makes the continuing correspondence more complicated than a record of shared taste. A letter must address a particular person, and its judgments can carry the additional task of sustaining a relationship. Her invocation of their old alliance suggests that loyalty remained meaningful without removing artistic disagreement. Read alongside the diary response, the courteous letter reveals the distance between evaluating a book privately and deciding what to say to its author.
Why we recommend it
The circle's last file
The Miller letters were published in 1987; this volume opens the triangle's other side.
Fame, both directions
His arrived first, hers arrived larger — the letters track both reversals with candor.
The Booster days
The gleeful, broke, collaborative end of literary Paris, from a principal's mailbox.
What this book explores
Timeline
1937–1939
The Villa Seurat years: the Booster, the Series, and the trio's collaborations before the war.
1940–1977
The long correspondence across diverging careers, to the last year of Nin's life.
2020
The letters are published.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Sky Blue Press
- 2020
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1934–1939
The diary's account of the years the early letters come from.
Read our takeLetters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977: frequently asked questions
What is Letters to Lawrence Durrell?
A 2020 collection of Anaïs Nin's letters to the novelist and poet Lawrence Durrell, spanning 1937 to 1977 — four decades of the friendship begun at the Villa Seurat.
How did Nin and Durrell meet?
Durrell came to Paris in 1937, drawn by Tropic of Cancer, and joined Nin and Henry Miller at the Villa Seurat — the trio ran the circle's late magazines and imprints together.
What was the Villa Seurat Series?
The small imprint the three writers ran from the Villa Seurat, which published Nin's Winter of Artifice in 1939 alongside books by Miller and Durrell.
What years does the collection cover?
1937 to 1977 — from the prewar collaborations to the year of Nin's death.
Are Durrell's letters included?
The collection presents Nin's side of the correspondence — her letters to Durrell across the forty years.
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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 Letters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Letters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977
NovelAnaïs Nin, 2020Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Anaïs Nin — biography
WebsiteThe Anaïs Nin FoundationUsed forUsed to place Letters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977 within Anaïs Nin's published work and verify its bibliographic context.
3Anaïs Nin Papers — diary, March–September 1938
ArchiveUCLA Library Special CollectionsUsed forUsed for independent biographical, archival, or historical context surrounding Anaïs Nin's career and the period in which Letters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977 appeared.
4Anaïs Nin: A Biography
BiographyG. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995Used forUsed to cross-check authorship, chronology, and the work's place in Anaïs Nin's wider catalogue.
5Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin
BiographyLittle, Brown, 1993Used forUsed to verify Anaïs Nin's bibliography and place Letters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977 within the broader chronology of Anaïs Nin's career.
6Letters to Lawrence Durrell, 1937–1977 — foreword preview
WebsiteSky Blue Press / Everand, 2020Used forRichard Pine's foreword in the public 2020 publisher preview: quoted responses to The Black Book, Justine and Monsieur. Only the displayed foreword portion was checked, not the complete letters or manuscripts.
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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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