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Tropic of Capricorn
by Miller, Henry
- Used
- Hardcover
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
San Francisco, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: John Calder, 1964. Hardcover. First British edition (unless there were pirated issues), hardbound in orange-red cloth boards gilt, a very nice design in perfect condition (clean, sound, crisp, unmarked) only lacking the jacket. Miller has a way of insulting everybody and getting away with it. "At first blush people usually [take] me to be good" (p.9). His decency is his hidden side. He hangs out with misogynists, utters racist stuff in Harlem, sprinkles anti-Semitism casually like simple intensifiers, and is even anti-capitalist-America.
Synopsis
Like his previous work, Tropic of Cancer , Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn stayed banned in the U.S. until 1961. Written with a similar style and theme, the book details and to some extent parodies Miller's experiences working for Western Union, referring to the company throughout the book as the “Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company.” In Capricorn , Miller expounded on his travails as a struggling writer in New York in the 1920s, and with his troubled marriage. The book was published by Obelisk Press in Paris in 1939. The first U.S. Edition was printed by Grove Press in 1961, and signed copies of this book are also sought after, due to the lawsuit and controversy surrounding its publication. The trilogy itself represents a significant challenge to traditional literary forms, and Miller's appeal to counter-culture continues to attract new collectors. The final book in Miller's Obelisk Trilogy , it was followed by Black Spring in 1938, a collection of shorter stories related to the series, and Tropic of Capricorn in 1939, another stream-of-consciousness account of the author's struggles in New York in the 1920s. Flaws in the first Paris edition (printed in English) commonly include a damaged or missing spine. Wear to the cover and boards, and chips and unevenness to the page edges are also common. Signed copies of this work in good condition are often sold for over $1,000. The first U.S. Edition is of higher quality, and features gilt lettering on the title pages, and marbled paper boards. Less commonly seen errors for this edition include soiling and damage to the edges, folded corners of pages, and slight loosening of the boards and binding.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Bolerium Books Inc., ABAA/ILAB
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 316199
- Title
- Tropic of Capricorn
- Author
- Miller, Henry
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- John Calder
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1964
- Bookseller catalogs
- Critical Theory; Anti-Semitism; Poor, poverty;
Terms of Sale
Bolerium Books Inc., ABAA/ILAB
All books subject to prior sale Major Institutions can be billed. ALL BOOKS ARE IN VERY GOOD CONDITION OR BETTER UNLESS NOTED. All books returnable for any reason within thirty days of receipt.
About the Seller
Bolerium Books Inc., ABAA/ILAB
Biblio member since 2005
San Francisco, California
About Bolerium Books Inc., ABAA/ILAB
Established in 1981 in San Francisco, we specialize in books and ephemeral materials related to the history of Labor and other social movements, including the struggles for Black and Chicano equality, the Gay liberation movement, Feminism, and Asian-American activism, as well as the Far Right. In recent years Bolerium has expanded into materials in non-western languages, especially from East Asia, and has also placed more emphasis on ephemera, with tens of thousands of original leaflets, pamphlets, and posters in stock. You can sign up for free email lists in our subject areas at www.bolerium.com. We are located in San Francisco at 2141 Mission, Suite 300 (between 17th & 18th St.). We're open by appointment only..
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Crisp
- A term often used to indicate a book's new-like condition. Indicates that the hinges are not loosened. A book described as crisp...
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
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