Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller
- Used
- very good
- Paperback
- Condition
- Very Good/No Jacket
- ISBN 10
- 0006545831
- ISBN 13
- 9780006545835
- Seller
-
Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer is one of the most notoriously and frequently censored books in the history of American literature. In a combination of autobiography and fiction, the novel centers of Miller’s own life as a struggling writer in Paris in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Tropic of Cancer is written in the first person and lacks linear organization, two of Miller’s most favored techniques. Some chapters are narratives about Miller’s friends and workplaces, and others are stream-of-consciousness-style reflections, but all of the chapters touch on the sexual exploits and general low-life ruthlessness in which the author had engaged at the time. Tropic of Cancer was first published by Obelisk Press, a French publisher of soft pornography, in Paris in 1934. Shortly thereafter, the novel was banned in the US and later tried for charges of obscenity, a trial that challenged American pornography laws at the time. In 1961, the ban of Tropic of Cancer was lifted, and later that year, Grove Press published the first US edition of the novel, but only after the firm’s Barney Rosset offered Miller a sizeable advance and promised to defend the author in any future legal battles regarding the publication. Grove Press’s edition of Tropic of Cancer sold over 1 million copies by the end of 1961… and was the subject of about 60 lawsuits as well, one of which involved the American Civil Liberties Union. All of this hullabaloo makes one wonder what the reactions might have been if Miller had decided to go with the novel’s working title, Crazy Cock — which was, ironically, far more modest than the published version. Regardless, the novel’s 1970 film adaptation, directed by Joseph Strick, received an X rating (meaning no one 17 and under admitted). Today, Tropic of Cancer finds itself ranked 50th on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century and 59th on The Guardian’s list of the 100 best novels.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Washburn Books (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 006301
- Title
- Tropic of Cancer
- Author
- Henry Miller
- Format/Binding
- Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- No Jacket
- Edition
- Reprint
- ISBN 10
- 0006545831
- ISBN 13
- 9780006545835
- Publisher
- Flamingo Modern Classic
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1993
- Size
- 12mo - over 6¾" - 7&
Terms of Sale
Washburn Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Washburn Books
About Washburn Books
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- 12mo
- A duodecimo is a book approximately 7 by 4.5 inches in size, or similar in size to a contemporary mass market paperback. Also...
- Reprint
- Any printing of a book which follows the original edition. By definition, a reprint is not a first edition.
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...