The Deer Park [antikvár]

Preface to The Deer Park There are books which are born like endangered children, and they battle for their lives and change the nature of the parent - in the case of this analogy, the author. The Deer Park is a.book like this, and it had a lurid history, which is to say it came out loud in the press and livid in the heart of the writer. A few years after publication the author was still brooding sufficiently over what had happened to desire to write about its reception, and that sustained passage called The Last Draft of The Deer Park printed m Esquire and then in Advertisements For Myself, is reprinted here at the back of this book after the novel. It is purposely placed at the back of the book. The story of The Deer Park stands after all—or at least one hopes it does—in fair shape by itself. I would not wish to distort a new reader's 'impression by having him read about its history first, particularly since it is I think of all my novels the one which shows the fewest signs of the work which went into it, and I like it that way. So the reader is requested to enjoy the novel first, if he chooses to, and then take his opportunity to learn of The Deer Park1 s inner history, a private account of the relation between the novel and the author. It is on occasion a relation as interesting as many a marriage.