Typed letter signed (“Leonard”) to Marianne Ihlen ("My darling Marianne") [Montreal, c.December 1960].

One page, 275 x 215mm (short closed tear at right margin, not affecting text).

In December 1960, The Favorite Game was rejected by Canadian publisher McClelland & Stewart and here Cohen responds with sheer relief. “My book was refused. All the reader’s reports were unfavourable. Since hearing the news I have been strangely exultant. I feel free again... I can experiment again, try anything, lose everything. It doesn’t matter... I'm alone with myself and the vast dictionaries of language. It's a joy. I'm a bum, loafer. I want to write plays, songs, poems, words, all over the page."

Regarding their relationship, he notes that he's "always thinking" of Marianne and her beauty—"What can I say? You have gone deep inside of me. I want to sing when I remember all our work of love." He comments on how it feels being back in Canada ("I have rediscovered my favorite streets and iron fences") and closes, "I am thinking very hard of the two of you, how wonderful the two of you are, madonna and child. There is so much joy to seize. A whole Greek sky of sunlight is bursting in my heart."

By descent from Marianne Ihlen.