Henry Miller

Henry Miller (December 26, 1891, New York City–June 7, 1980, Pacific Palisades, California), was an American writer. He is particularly known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of "novel" that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also an imaginative construct. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.

Biography

In early years, he had tried a variety of jobs and briefly attended the City College of New York. In both 1928 and 1929, he spent several months in Paris with his second wife, June Edith Smith (June Miller). He moved to Paris the next year unaccompanied, where he lived until the outbreak of World War II. He lived an impecunious lifestyle that depended on the benevolence of friends, such as Anais Nin, who became his lover and financed the first printing of Tropic of Cancer in 1934.

Related Topics:
City College of New York - 1928 - 1929 - Paris - June Miller - World War II - Anais Nin

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In the fall of 1931, Miller got a job with the Chicago Tribune (Paris edition) as a proofreader, thanks to his friend Alfred Perlès who worked there. Miller took the opportunity to submit some of his articles under Perlès name, since only the editorial staff were permitted to publish in the paper in 1934.

Related Topics:
1931 - Chicago Tribune - Proofreader - Alfred Perlès - 1934

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A small number of his works contain detailed accounts of sexual experiences, and his books did much to free the discussion of sexual subjects in American writing from both legal and social restrictions. He continued to write novels that were banned in the United States on grounds of obscenity. Along with Tropic of Cancer, his Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939), were smuggled into his native country, building Miller an underground reputation. One of the first acknowledgements of Henry Miller as a major modern writer was by George Orwell in his essay Inside the Whale http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/inside-the-whale1.htm, where he wrote in 1940, "Here in my opinion is the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past. Even if that is objected to as an overstatement, it will probably be admitted that Miller is a writer out of the ordinary, worth more than a single glance; and after all, he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer, a mere Jonah, a passive acceptor of evil, a sort of Whitman among the corpses."

Related Topics:
1936 - 1939 - George Orwell

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In 1940, he returned to the United States settling in Big Sur, California. He continued to produce his vividly written works that challenged contemporary American cultural values and moral attitudes. He spent the last years of his life in Pacific Palisades.

Related Topics:
1940 - Big Sur, California - Pacific Palisades

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The publication of Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the United States in 1961 led to a series of obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography. The US Supreme Court, in Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein, citing Jacobellis v. Ohio (which was decided the same day in 1964), overruled the state court findings of obscenity and declared the book a work of literature; it was one of the notable events in what has come to be known as the sexual revolution.

Related Topics:
US Supreme Court - Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein - Jacobellis v. Ohio - 1964 - Sexual revolution

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Miller was also a painter and wrote books about his painting. He was also an amateur pianist.

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After his death, Henry Miller was cremated and his ashes scattered off Big Sur. There are two museums holding Henry Miller's watercolors: The Henry Miller Museum of Art in Omachi City in Nagano, Japan and The Henry Miller Art Museum at Coast Gallery in Big Sur.

Related Topics:
Omachi City - Nagano - Japan

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