Tropic Of Capricorn

Emma — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A cult modern classic, Tropic of Capricorn is as daring, frank and influential as Henry Miller first novel, Tropic of Cancer — new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey Emin

A story of sexual and spiritual awakening, Tropic of Capricorn shocked readers when it was published in 1939. A mixture of fiction and autobiography, it is the story of Henry V. Miller who works for the Cosmodemonic telegraph company in New York in the 1920s and tries to write the most important work of literature that was ever published. Tropic of Capricorn paints a dazzling picture of the life of the writer and of New York City between the wars: the skyscrapers and the sewers, the lust and the dejection, the smells and the sounds of a city that is perpetually in motion, threatening to swallow everyone and everything.

‘Literature begins and ends with the meaning of what Miller has done’ Lawrence Durrell

‘The only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past’ George Orwell

‘The greatest American writer’ Bob Dylan

Henry Miller (1891-1980) is one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. His best-known novels include Tropic of Cancer (1934), Tropic of Capricorn (1939), and the Rosy Crucifixion trilogy (Sexus, 1949, Plexus, 1953, and Nexus, 1959), all published in France and banned in the US and the UK until 1964. He is widely recognised as an irreverent, risk-taking writer who redefined the novel and made the link between the European avant-garde and the American Beat generation.

Tropic Of Cancer

Emma — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Shocking, banned and the subject of obscenity trials, Henry Miller’s first novel Tropic of Cancer is one of the most scandalous and influential books of the twentieth century — new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey Emin

Tropic of Cancer redefined the novel. Set in Paris in the 1930s, it features a starving American writer who lives a bohemian life among prostitutes, pimps, and artists. Banned in the US and the UK for more than thirty years because it was considered pornographic, Tropic of Cancer continued to be distributed in France and smuggled into other countries. When it was first published in the US in 1961, it led to more than 60 obscenity trials until a historic ruling by the Supreme Court defined it as a work of literature. Long hailed as a truly liberating book, daring and uncompromising, Tropic of Cancer is a cornerstone of modern literature that asks us to reconsider everything we know about art, freedom, and morality.

‘At last an unprintable book that is fit to read’ Ezra Pound

‘A momentous event in the history of modern writing’ Samuel Beckett

‘The book that forever changed the way American literature would be written’ Erica Jong

Miller, Henry – The Bell Bookshop

Tropic Of Capricorn

Tropic Of Cancer