The Henry Miller Reader

The two writers had been friends since 1935, when Durrell, then twenty-three and unknown, wrote Miller a letter praising Tropic of Cancer. Miller wrote back, and the correspondence grew into a close friendship: Durrell later invited Miller to Corfu, a visit that produced The Colossus of Maroussi. By the late 1950s their positions had reversed. Durrell's Alexandria novels had made him famous, while Miller's major books still could not be sold in America. The Reader was Durrell's way of using that fame on his friend's behalf: choose the strongest pages from thirty years of work and present them to readers who knew Miller's reputation but not his writing.

Miller's own contribution gives the book its character. He wrote a short introduction for each selection — where it was written, what he thought of it years later, and sometimes why he disagreed with Durrell's choice. Read in sequence, the notes amount to a brief memoir of his career. The book appeared two years before Grove Press published Tropic of Cancer in the United States and the courts finally ruled on it; the Reader made the case for Miller's writing while the ban was still in force.

Selections from every period of Miller's career: the Paris books, portrait essays such as "Max" and "The Cosmological Eye," the Greek travel writing, the American years, and essays on writing and censorship. Durrell's introduction opens the book, and Miller's notes precede each piece.

For a first-time reader it remains the most practical starting point: the strongest short selection of Miller's work in one volume.