Henry Miller letter to Emil Schellock
Attached is the text (downloadable Word document above) of a letter dated December 1, 1930 from the American writer Henry Miller — written by Miller from Paris — to his American friend Emil Schnellock. Miller and Schnellock had known each other since schooldays at P.S. 85 in Brooklyn (class of 1905). They were lifelong friends. Emil Schnellock was a successful commercial artist.
Miller moved to France in 1930 (he made a previous trip there lasting a few months in 1928) and remained in France for approximately ten years. During this period, as an exile. Miller experienced profound feelings of liberation and a burst of creativity, both of which are seen in his autobiographical novel Tropic of Cancer.
— Roger W. Smith
September 2020
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addendum:
This letter “charmed” me when I first read it some thirty (perhaps) years ago. I thought to myself: Now that’s how to write a letter!
Reading it again now, I guess I would say that I am not quite as entranced. Maybe what thrilled Miller almost a century ago doesn’t thrill (or titillate) us the same today. But this is vintage Miller. The raconteur who when he gets going should not and can not stop. It all comes tumbling out, not carefully crafted: the minute observation and the grandiose impression or thought; the connoisseur and intellectual as well as the sensualist and extoller of the tawdry, the carnal and prosaic. One thing I would say about Miller’s writing is that, it all tumbles out pell-mell, but he has a great “ear.” The tone, rhythm, and pacing are just right. I guess that’s gift a writer such as Miller is born with.
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addendum:
See also my post:
“Henry Miller”
Roger's rhetoric 