In 1953, to mark Sargeson's fiftieth birthday, "Landfall" published "A Letter to Frank Sargeson", written and signed by sixteen of his fellow New Zealand writers, including Frame, Duggan, David Ballantyne, Bill Pearson, Helen Lilian Shaw and others. The letter praised Sargeson for his contributions to New Zealand literature, saying that he had "proved that a New Zealander could publish work true to his own country and of a high degree of artistry, and that exile in the cultural centres of the old world was not necessary to this end", and "revealed that our manners and behaviour formed just as good a basis for enduring literature as those of any other country". In the editorial to that same issue, Charles Brasch commented that Sargeson's birthday was more than a merely personal occasion: "By his courage and his gifts he showed that it was possible to be a writer and contrive to live, somehow, in New Zealand, and all later writers are in his debt."