Sole edition. One of apparently six copies bound for presentation in black silk boards with an inlaid silver motif. The editors own copy, with which is included the two page holograph manuscript of the letter with Henry Miller's contribution to the journal on Lawrence Durrell. A fine copy with original tissue glassine. Miller's manuscript on two pages of letter paper, his address rubber-stamped on the first, with a central crease.

Labrys was a literary journal edited and published by Grahaeme Barrasford Young, which would issue special numbers annually focusing on a single author. Young would solicit contributions from literary luminaries who knew the subject.
This copy, one of a handful of casebound copies, was retained by Young and contains the manuscript of a short piece that Henry Miller wrote about Durrell, in his characteristically provocative way,
"Lawrence Durrell is to me the finest writer in the English language today... And being the sort of writer he is he had to leave bloody England and nourish his soul in the "Mediterranean world". Today he is a thorough Mediterranean spirit...
As a man and a friend (a perennial) I have the greatest affection and reverence for him. He is the embodiment of humor, joviality, esoteric wisdom and enlightenment... I am glad he is so well received in foreign countries, sincere expatriate that he is.
I cannot help but add that he makes the usual British (apologetic) writer seem like a puling idiot. He has forged a language all of his own. It will live; it will outlive Shakespeare and all your other idols' work."
Miller had formed a close friendship with Durrell, following their initial meeting in Paris in 1937 and a return fixture in Corfu in 1939. Born upon mutual admiration of each others work their connection proved pivotal to both authors' development.

Stock ID: 46695