Tropic of Cancer
Published on 3. May 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-0-00-720446-5 (ISBN)
Description
Miller's groundbreaking first novel, banned in Britain for almost thirty years. A penniless and as yet unpublished writer, Henry Miller arrived in Paris in 1930. Leaving behind a disintegrating marriage and an unhappy career in America, he threw himself into the low-life of bohemian Paris with unwavering gusto. A fictional account of Miller's adventures amongst the prostitutes and pimps, the penniless painters and writers of Montparnasse, Tropic of Cancer is an extravagant and rhapsodic hymn to a world of unrivalled eroticism and freedom. Tropic of Cancer's 1934 publication in France was hailed by Samuel Beckett as 'a momentous event in the history of modern writing'. The novel was subsequently banned in the UK and the USA and not released for publication for a further thirty years.
Reviews / Votes
'A ranting, randy book carried along by a deep, sensual enjoyment of living.' Sunday Times 'Tropic of Cancer is a great prophetic book, a warning of what deadens life, an affirmation that it can yet be lived in an age whose sterile non-cultures seek to thwart all mainsprings of fertility. Miller reveals himself as a battered faun, a crafty innocent, a lonely, lazy, sometimes fearful, always steadfast, worshipper of life' SpectatorMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 130 mm
Weight
240 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-720446-5 (9780007204465)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Person
Henry Miller was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1930, he went to live in Paris and for the next ten years he mingled with impoverished expatriates and bohemian Parisians. His first published book, Tropic of Cancer appeared in 1934 published by the Obelisk Press in Paris. It was followed five years later by its sister volume Tropic of Capricorn. Sexually explicit, these books electrified the European literary avant-garde and were almost universally banned outside France. In 1961, after an epic legal battle, Tropic of Cancer was finally published in the US (and then in England in 1963). Miller became a household name, hailed by the Sixties counter-culture as a prophet of freedom and sexual revolution. He died on June 7 1980.