Details
MILLER, Henry (1891-1980). Seven autograph letters signed and two typed letters signed to André Rousseaux, Big Sur, 9 April 1947 - 10 February 1954, 10½ pages in autograph and 4 pages, 4to typed; and another item.
An interesting group of letters to the literary critic of Le Figaro, whose comments Miller appreciates ('I am stirred by a sort of justice which you render me'), in most of them referring with admiration to Charles Péguy by whose writing he has been inspired (Sometimes it is only by contrasting a man like Péguy with a pope that we realise how creative is the spirit of man and how holy') -- referring to the Koran, to Rimbaud ('I love that fragment of his life when he is teaching the children in Abyssinia. The infidel giving religious instructions'), and in several explaining his own stance on religion: 'The reason I do not consider myself a Christian is because I cannot be restricted. I am as much a Buddhist and a Taoist. I almost believe I prefer Buddha to Christ, were it not ridiculous to say so, because at bottom are not the Buddhas ... and the Christs one? ... what I deplore about most Christians is their revelry in sorrow and suffering which is the very opposite that Jesus taught'.
Miller had left Paris for the United States in 1940. His 'magnum opus' The Rosy Crucifixion, which he writes in 1947 that he is resuming 'après un délai de cinq ans', was published in two parts, Sexus in 1949 and Plexus in 1953. The poet and philosopher Charles Péguy (1873-1914), founder of the influential Cahiers de la Quinzaine, was killed on the Marne early in the First World War. André Rousseaux, whose literary criticism was much admired for its perception and objectivity, was the author of Le Prophète Péguy (1942) and of a substantial three-volume work on 20th-century French literature published in 1948-49. (14)
An interesting group of letters to the literary critic of Le Figaro, whose comments Miller appreciates ('I am stirred by a sort of justice which you render me'), in most of them referring with admiration to Charles Péguy by whose writing he has been inspired (Sometimes it is only by contrasting a man like Péguy with a pope that we realise how creative is the spirit of man and how holy') -- referring to the Koran, to Rimbaud ('I love that fragment of his life when he is teaching the children in Abyssinia. The infidel giving religious instructions'), and in several explaining his own stance on religion: 'The reason I do not consider myself a Christian is because I cannot be restricted. I am as much a Buddhist and a Taoist. I almost believe I prefer Buddha to Christ, were it not ridiculous to say so, because at bottom are not the Buddhas ... and the Christs one? ... what I deplore about most Christians is their revelry in sorrow and suffering which is the very opposite that Jesus taught'.
Miller had left Paris for the United States in 1940. His 'magnum opus' The Rosy Crucifixion, which he writes in 1947 that he is resuming 'après un délai de cinq ans', was published in two parts, Sexus in 1949 and Plexus in 1953. The poet and philosopher Charles Péguy (1873-1914), founder of the influential Cahiers de la Quinzaine, was killed on the Marne early in the First World War. André Rousseaux, whose literary criticism was much admired for its perception and objectivity, was the author of Le Prophète Péguy (1942) and of a substantial three-volume work on 20th-century French literature published in 1948-49. (14)
Special notice
Buyers from within the EU:
VAT payable at 17.5% on just the buyer's premium (NOT the hammer price)
Buyers from outside the EU:
VAT payable at 17.5% on hammer price and buyer's premium. If a buyer, having registered under a non-EU address, decides that an item is not to be exported from the EU, then he/she should advise Christie's to this effect immediately.