Tropic of Capricorn.

MILLER, Henry.

$6,500.00

Item Number: 110655

Paris: Obelisk Press, 1939.

First edition, one of only 1000 copies printed in Paris, to avoid obscenity laws in the United States. Octavo, original red and white wrappers. Association copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the front free endpaper, “To Henry Church with best wishes, Henry Miller 5/5/39.” Henry Church and his wife Barbara were patrons of the arts in 1930s-40s France, and were friends with many of the important writers of the era. In near fine condition with light rubbing to the fragile wrappers. With first issue price of 60 francs printed on the spine. With errata slip, often not found, tipped to title page. Rare and desirable signed and inscribed example of this cornerstone of modern literature.

Tropic of Capricorn, with its focus on on Henry Miller’s Brooklyn youth, concludes his famed autobiographical trilogy—following Tropic of Cancer (1934) and Black Spring (1936). Once hailed by Norman Mailer as “the last great American pioneer,” Miller sparked much controversy over the novel’s explicit descriptions of sexual encounters. “Although his two most important works, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, were published in Paris in the 1930s, because of their heavy sexual content, they were not published in the United States until the early 1960s, when Miller’s work became the leading battlefield in the war over ‘pornographic’ literature” (Hoffman, 108). Listed by Modern Library as one of the 100 greatest novels of the twentieth century.