Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley

by May Sarton

Book Overview

May Sarton's love for Juliette Huxley, ignited that first moment she saw her in 1936, transcended sixty years of friendship, passion, silence, and reconciliation. In the breadth and variation of these letters, we see Sarton in all her complexities and are privy to the nuances of her rich amitie amoureuse with Juliette, the preeminent muse and most enduring love of her life. The letters chart their meeting; May's affair with Juliette's husband, Julian...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393047334
• ISBN13: 9780393047332
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley

In this book of letters, rich in description of life before, during, and after the war, Sarton's inner climate and varied landscape are revealed in fascinating detail. Readers find fertile ground for contemplation of who Sarton really was and why this friendship endured. *Dear Juliette* contains extraordinarily detailed notes researched by Susan Sherman who is knowledgeable about her subject from both personal and scholarly perspectives. Providing a palette of color and shading in emotional texture as well as factual background, Sherman's notes add tremendous depth to the story Sarton tells. The preface gives the reader insightful information about Sarton's complicated temperament and brings clarity and understanding to the canvas. This is Sarton at her best: with the transparency she so valued telling her readers about the most remarkable love of her life.....her dear Juliette.

Herculean Task

From Erika Pfander Director of the Chamber Theatre of Maine; Director and Producer of May Sarton's only plays: "The Music Box Bird" and "The Underground River"DEAR JULIETTE; LETTERS OF MAY SARTON TO JULIETTE HUXLEYReaders of May Sarton-whose numbers are legion- must indeed be grateful for Susan Sherman, the gifted editor of this exquisite book. As official editor of Sarton's letters Ms. Sherman is undertaking the herculean task of compiling and editing Sarton's voluminous correspondences: it is clear from what she has given us in this richly rewarding volume(and,two previous volumes: May Sarton: AMONG THE USUAL DAYS and MAY SARTON; SELECTED LETTERS (1916-1954), that she is uniquely qualified for the task.Sherman is a writer of grace,wisdom,and integrity-evidenced by her sensitive selection of letters and photographs, and her illuminating notes and preface. This volume is a gift to all Sarton's readers, for the letters let us hear Sarton's voice at every stage of her life. While the journals, which have moved and inspired so many-with their bracing honesty,intelligence,and keen observation of nature (human and otherwise)-are full of the richness and challenges of daily life in her middle and late years, their references to the past are memories.Her letters, however, are those memories, as well as each day's life as it was lived, and they reveal her ardent, vibrant mind and sensitive spirit. Throughout her life she was a seeker of beauty,justice,and truth-and thus was vulnerable to(but not diminished by) heartache and disappointment. Her involvement with the Huxleys spanned the years 1936-1948; her deep love for, and abiding friendship with Juliette survived a 25 year silence,and when renewed-lasted until Juliette's death,a year before May's own death in 1995. What a delicate balance, that three-way relationship [Julian-May-Juliette]-and what a privilige to be given an intimate view of this remarkable friendship between two extraordinary women set against extraordinary times.

Dear Juliette: an evocation of the "ethos of a love affair"

Susan Sherman, editor of Dear Juliette, was bequeathed the challenge of bringing to life Sarton's relationship with Juliette Huxley. Too frail and in ill health to complete the process of selecting and editing hundreds of letters and completing an introduction that would preface this story, Sarton asked Ms. Sherman to complete the work. As editor of previous volumes of Sarton's unpublished poems and letters, including May Sarton Among the Usual Days and May Sarton: Selected Letters 1916-1954, Ms. Sherman was well qualified to bring this project to fruition, the results of which are this monumental achievement presenting the immortalization of the "ethos of a love affair." In a letter written to Juliette in 1937 Sarton comments: "How difficult it is to love well - to know when it is better to be silent, that even joy can strain the heart so frightfully - though in general everything that denies life seems false to me." (63)* That comment sums up a great deal of Sarton's feelings about human relationships and would remain essentially the same throughout her life. She could not deny love, regardless of the pain, suffering, fear or misunderstanding that may develop. Sarton first met the Huxleys, Julian and Juliette, in 1936. This meeting would change her life forever. Ironically, she first shared a love affair with Julian Huxley, biologist and then Director of the London Zoo. It was through this affair that Sarton grew to realize her real passion was reserved for women, as she explained to Julian in a letter: ". . . there is a part of me perhaps the writing part that needs a woman as a man needs a woman. ... However much one loves there are things one can't do against one's own spirit." (70) It was the writing part of her, the poet, who fell in love with Juliette. Juliette became Sarton's muse as poetry flowed from her pen. "One of the great virtues [of poetry] is that power to say an apparently unsayable thing quite simply." (44) Yet this love, as intense and powerful as it was, was not destined to be fully reciprocated. Juliett's fear and misunderstanding eventually dictated a twenty-seven year separation which was only overcome upon the death of Julian Huxley in the mid 1970s. Eventually May Sarton and Juliette Huxley were reuinited, the circle of the ethos of their love affair was completed. The intervening years of silence had not destroyed the love Sarton held for Juliette, it had just tempered it. ". . . the pain is no longer acute; joy is no longer as intense as one looks back." (295) But the letters and poetry that were written around this passionate friendship remain and are a testament to its endurance. They underscore Sarton's presceint statement from 1948: "I would race through the years to meet you at the other end." (241) *page numbers are from the text of Dear Juliette Lenora P. Blouin Author: May Sarton: A Bibliography Scarecrow Press, 1978 Forthcoming: Ma

Fine biography and autobiography of May Sarton

DearJuliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley is both biography and autobiography, plus a rich example of the nearly lost art of letter-writing. May Sarton wrote to Juliette Huxley between the years 1936 and 1948, then resumed in 1976 until about a month and a half before her beloved Juliette died in l994. These letters reveal the growth of the human being, May Sarton from the age of 23 until she was in her eighties: the breath of her interests, her passions, her humor, her anquishes and most of all her deep love for a remarkable woman, Juliette. In her preface and footnotes, the editor Susan Sherman, broadens the scope of the book into a biography by filling in the details about the people and events that May writes of. As both women were fluent in French, May often slipped into that language as she wrote. Susan Sherman¹s translations are extremely helpful. This is a book one wants to own, so to savor a few delightful (and some very sad) letters at a time. As a whole it reveals a much more truthful picture of May Sarton than Margot Peters¹ recent biography.