The Library of Roger Wagner - PBA Galleries

110. miller, henry. The World of Sex - revisions. 42 glossy photographs, each 8x10 of Miller’s
holograph revisions. 2 pages of text per photograph.
No place: 1957
Miller was told by Olympia Press that they were to publish a side-by-side edition with one page
demonstrating his holograph revisions facing a page of the final text. The book was published
with only 10 such pages, maddening Miller. The photographs show the actual extent of
revisions and emendations by Miller on the work, which left hardly a sentence unchanged. Near
fine.
(800/1200)
Lot 110
111. miller, henry. “Third Eye Correspondence”. Envelope filled with Miller’s 9-page typed essay
on T. Lobsang Rampa’s book, The Third Eye (with numerous holograph corrections by Miller) &
ensuing correspondence from Rampa (Hoskins) to Miller and from Ken McCormick, editor in chief
at Doubleday, to Miller.
Various places: 1957-1958
Fascinating correspondence regarding the famous literary hoax, in which Cyril Henry Hoskin,
a plumber’s son from Plympton, England who had never been to the Orient, masqueraded as
Tibetan lama “T. Lobsang Rampa” and wrote The Third Eye, an “autobiographical” account
of the lama’s life in Asia, clairvoyant doings, and occult beliefs that was questioned from the
outset. In 1957, before the hoax was revealed, Henry Miller was on a “one- man crusade” to
bring about awareness of the importance of Rampa’s already controversial metaphysical book,
and to get it published in the United States, and his essay gives many insights into Miller’s
own philosophies despite the hoax. Throughout the correspondence, the hoax is revealed
and Hoskin comes up with a number of explanations, one being that he had ghosted the
story for a Tibetan in hiding, another that he was a Tibetan spiritually inhabiting the body
of an Englishman, and (my personal favorite) that he had stolen identity papers from a dead
Englishman living in the East and masqueraded as him to move to Ireland, where he resided
at the time of the hoax. There are several signed letters from him to Henry Miller, providing
these explanations, and Miller’s letters back to him are very supportive. Throughout their
correspondence, Hoskin’s language get more relaxed, making it quite clear that English is not his
second language, and the two get down to writing about the best & worst literary agents, money,
etc. As Hoskin had sworn Miller to utter secrecy regarding the revelation that he had stolen a
British I.D. off a dead body, the outside of the envelope of correspondence reads, in Miller’s
hand, “Do not open until after my death - Henry Miller.” Fine - a fascinating group of letters.
(600/900)
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