5 May (1958): Henry Miller to James Laughlin

James Laughlin, the founder of New Directions Publishing, began publishing Henry Miller’s short stories when Laughlin was an undergraduate at Harvard. Laughlin made his first attempt to push the boundaries of free speech with Miller’s story “Glittering Pie” in the Harvard Advocate, which he later described as “Miller enough” for the police to want it banned. (Laughlin and Miller avoided charges by getting the District Attorney good seats at a Harvard-Yale football game.) Below, Miller explains to Laughlin why he cannot give up his fight for freedom of expression. His most famous work, Tropic of Cancer, was banned in the U.S. in 1934 by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Three decades later, the novel was finally printed by Grove Press, sparking—as Miller anticipated—another round of obscenity trials. At the trial, Miller’s lawyer called to the stand Harry T. Moore, a professor from the University of Southern Illinois, who told the judge that the book’s “seamier passages reflect the life of real people… If this book is obscene, then life is obscene.” The case made it to the Supreme Court, which in 1964 ruled that the book could be sold and distributed.

Big Sur, 5/5/58

Dear Jay L.:

Regarding your letter of recent date with regard to a H.M. Reader, here are my thoughts on it, pro tem. First of all I must tell you that Durrell has not shown me as yet a table of contents for such a project. I rather think that he, you, Cowley and myself would have varying ideas on the subject. And right here I am inclined to say that, provided certain basic considerations can be agreed upon between publisher and author, that it might be wiser to let two men like Durrell and Cowley decide upon the contents rather than you and me. (Of course it would have to be seen whether these two would care to cooperate. Certainly we couldn’t ask for two better editors)…

But regardless of who does the job, here are my thoughts about the contents of the book. Representative excerpts should be taken from virtually everything I have written, that is, everything published in book, pamphlet or brochure form….

The snag in the aforementioned, for me at least, is the matter of including material from the banned books. Cowley and Durrell, I know, will urge that if this be done it should be with uncensorable fragments only. I see the point of this all right, but at the same time I feel rebellious about it. I have a double attitude about this matter. One is a desire not to deceive the reader or let him down, knowing as I do that when he learns that fragments of the banned books will be included he will be prepared for “the real stuff” of which he has been so long deprived. Secondly, in view of the fact that England and America will not permit the publication of these books, and also since I more than any writer in the English language have not only championed freedom of expression but paid the price for it—I mean by permitting myself to be cut off from the main body of my reading public—I feel loath to make any compromise whatever, and certainly not a compromise which would make it look as though, towards the end of my life, I had grown weary of the struggle and for the sake of a few shekels had decided to give in. For me to lower my standards, after all these years—it will be 25 years next year since the Tropic of Cancer came out!—would be treason…

The image which the public and the critics and the authorities form of an author such as myself—and I am in the tradition, so to speak—is hardly likely to be influenced by a full, truthful and generous portrait (or evaluation of the work) given by a compatriot. There are certain artists who, once broadly condemned, remain so for their lifetime. It pleases the public, if I may put it that way, to hold fast to such an image, even though at heart they may admit it to be wrong. If you ask me why I can only say—through natural human perversity. And perhaps, all unconsciously, the public chooses this attitude in order to make it possible for the succeeding generation to right the picture and give the author his due. We are none of us sufficiently aware, it seems to me, how great a part the “wrong-doers” play in manifesting the right, or in abetting the right. That fecundating element called time, on which we finally rely when all else fails, is the catalytic agent which takes into account all the elements of a problem and not merely the ones which we think are important. Something—“it,” if you like—knows better than us. And “it” takes its own time, regardless of justice or injustice, right or wrong.

So where are we? There are two courses open, as I see it. One is to do the big thing and the brave thing, heedless of opinion, reckless of consequences, or carry on as heretofore within the limits prescribed. To try to accomplish our purpose by halfway, sensible, cautious methods seems useless to me. I hate muddling and compromise. The whole question is, is the moment opportune or not? If it is not, your bravery will get you nowhere. A man should know that he is going to win before he begins fighting; if he doesn’t, if he’s the least unsure of himself, he had better run and fight another day….

All the best meanwhile,

Henry

From Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters. Edited by George Wickers. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. pp. 138-143.

FURTHER READING