Tropic of Capricorn

by Henry Miller

Published 1 February 1966
The controversial, erotic and hilarious companion to the legendary Tropic of Cancer, in a smart new Perennial Modern Classics edition. A riotous and explosive mixture of joys and frustrations, Tropic of Capricorn chronicles Miller's early life in New York, from his repressive Brooklyn childhood spent amongst 'a galaxy of screwballs' to frantic, hilarious years of dead-end jobs and innumerable erotic adventures. Irreverent and ironic, Tropic of Capricorn is both a comic portrait of the irrepressible Miller himself and a scathing attack on respectable America, the very foundations of which he hoped to shatter. Publication of Tropic of Capricorn and its sister-volume Tropic of Cancer in Paris in the 1930s was hailed by Samuel Beckett as 'a momentous event in the history of modern writing'. The books were subsequently banned in the UK and the USA for nearly thirty years.

Black Spring

by Henry Miller

Published 1 April 1973
Written during the same period as "Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn", and banned in the English-speaking world upon its publication in Paris in 1936, "Black Spring" is one of Miller's finest achievements, and arguably his most distinguished book from a stylistic point of view. It consists of a number of linked episodes describing some of the crucial years in his personal saga, from recollections of his childhood in Brooklyn to his time in Paris.Imbued with the spirit of Miller's life experience, "Black Spring" is a linguistic tour de force which brings together the American author's greatest merits.

Moloch

by Henry Miller

Published 22 April 1993
Uncovered along with Crazy Cock in 1988 by Miller biographer Mary V. Dearborn, Moloch emerged from the misery of Miller's years at Western Union and from the squalor of his first marriage. Set in the rapidly changing New York City of the early twenties, its hero is the rough-and-tumble Dion Moloch, a man filled with anger and despair. Trapped in a demeaning job, oppressed by an acrimonious home life, Moloch escapes to the streets only to be assaulted by a world he despises even more a Brooklyn transformed into a shrill medley of ethnic sights, sounds, and smells. The antagonized Moloch strikes out blindly at everything he hates, battling against a world whose hostility threatens to overwhelm and destroy him."

Sexus

by Henry Miller

Published June 1969
The first book of a trilogy of novels known collectively as "The Rosy Crucifixion". It is autobiographical and tells the story of Miller's first tempestuous marriage and his relentless sexual exploits in New York. The other books are "Plexus" and "Nexus".

Crazy Cock

by Henry Miller and Mary V Dearborn

Published 19 March 1992
In 1930 Henry Miller moved from New York to Paris, leaving behind at least temporarily his tempestuous marriage to June Smith and a novel that had sprung from his anguish over her love affair with a mysterious woman named Jean Kronski. Begun in 1927, Crazy Cock is the story of Tony Bring, a struggling writer whose bourgeois inclinations collide with the disordered bohemianism of his much-beloved wife, Hildred, particularly when her lover, Vanya, comes to live with them in their already cramped Greenwich Village apartment. In a world swirling with violence, sex, and passion, the three struggle with their desires, inching ever nearer to insanity, each unable to break away from this dangerous and consuming love triangle."

Nexus

by Henry Miller

Published December 1969

The story of Miller's bizarre second marriage and its development into an extraordinary and legendary ménage à trois – the final installment of the `Rosy Curifixion’ trilogy.

'Goodbye, dear Pocohantas! Goodbye, P.T. Barnum! Goodbye, Street of Early Sorrows and may I never set eyes on you again!'

When Henry Miller left America for Paris in the 1930s to lead the life of a literary bohemian, he called this death of his former existence and his resurrection as a writer a 'rosy crucifixion'. This dramatic transformation provided the leitmotif for some of Miller's finest writing, embodying everything he felt about self-liberation and the true life of the spirit.

'Nexus', the final volume in the 'Rosy Crucifixion' trilogy, is a fictionalised account of his last, tempestuous few months in New York. Trapped in a bizarre ménage à trois with his volatile actress wife, Mona, and her eccentric lover, Stasia, Miller's life descends into violent and passionate anarchy. Demoralised, exhausted and finally abandoned by the cunning and disloyal Mona, he sails for Paris.


Quiet Days in Clichy

by Henry Miller

Published 18 August 1988

'Here, even if I had a thousand dollar in my pocket, I know of no sight which could arouse in me the feeling of ecstasy'

Looking back to Henry Miller's bohemian life in 1930s Paris, when he was an obscure, penniless writer, Quiet Days in Clichy is a love letter to a city. As he describes nocturnal wanderings through shabby Montmartre streets, cafés and bars, sexual liaisons and volatile love affairs, Miller brilliantly evokes a period that would shape his entire life and oeuvre.

'His writing is flamboyant, torrential, chaotic, treacherous, and dangerous' Anaïs Nin


Under the Roofs of Paris

by Henry Miller

Published 1 October 1985
In 1941, Henry Miller, the author of Tropic of Cancer, was commissioned by a Los Angeles bookseller to write an erotic novel for a dollar a page. Under the Roofs of Paris (originally published as Opus Pistorum) is that book. Here one finds Miller s characteristic candor, wit, self-mockery, and celebration of the good life. From Marcelle to Tania, to Alexandra, to Anna, and from the Left Bank to Pigalle, Miller sweeps us up in his odyssey in search of the perfect job, the perfect woman, and the perfect experience."