 Here is where these lines become confession in the presence of my unknown and unknowable me, unknown and unknowable for myself.Here is where I create the legend wherein I must bury myself,Miller goes on to write, “These lines appear in the fly-leaf to "Black Spring", a book which came nearer to being myself, I believe, than any book I have written before or since.”

The book "Henry Miller on Writing" includes a handwritten list of “commandments” (labeled “Work Schedule, 1932-33”) which hung above Miller’s desk with the second commandment being “Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’”

One of the notable aspects of the book is that each story (with the exception of “The Angel is My Watermark!”) begins with an epigraph taken from the respective story which to varying degrees sums up a major theme of the story.The epigraph for “The Tailor Shop" contains the phrase “always merry and bright,” which would become the title of Jay Martin's unauthorized biography of Miller.