Description

Description: This friendly, two-page autograph letter signed dated November 9, 1970 was written by acclaimed author Henry Miller to a Mr. di Capua. The letter reads in part: “By now, of course, Hesse is well-known in the U.S.A. (Even by non-reading college students? — I wonder.) I also wonder if it is your house which is reprinting Knut Hamsun’s work. He was — and still is — my idol. Strange thing is that the book of his I like most can never be found (except by book hunters) — I mean his “My Stories” which I have read 5 or 6 times — as has Isaac Bashevis Singer, I see… P. S. I may send you separately an announcement (Broadside) about a little book of mine being published now by the Loujon Press in Albuquerque (A collectors’ item)”.

Written on a 5 3/8″ x 8 3/8″ sheet of Henry Miller’s personal stationery with his Pacific Palisades, California address imprinted at the top. Item #A02000

Henry Miller (1891-1980) was an American novelist known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new type of semi-autobiographical novel. Some of his most famous works include: Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, Tropic of Capricorn, and the trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion, which are based on his experiences in New York and Paris.

Herman Hesse (1877-1962) was a German-Swiss poet and novelist, and winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature. His interest in Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions, combined with his involvement with Jungian analysis, helped to shape his literary work. His best-known novels include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual’s search for authenticity, self-knowledge, and spirituality.

Knut Hamsun (1859-1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun is considered “one of the most influential and innovative literary stylists of the past hundred years”. He pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, and influenced authors such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Maxim Gorky, Stefan Zweig, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, John Fante, James Kelman, Charles Bukowski and Ernest Hemingway. Hamsun’s major works include Hunger, Pan, the “wanderer trilogy”, and Growth of the Soil.

Condition: Fine condition with a clear, strong signature.