Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller
- Used
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Grove Press, 1961. Hard bound, 5th printing of the first edition, xxxiii + Pp318. Tight and unmarked - a very good or better copy in an edge-worn, slightly edge-torn dust jacket. 570 grams. We welcome all reasonable offers on our books and also offer local curbside pick-up. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
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
- Books on the Web
(CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 30032
- Title
- Tropic of Cancer
- Author
- Henry Miller
- Book Condition
- Used
- Publisher
- New York: Grove Press, 1961
- Keywords
- Henry Miller Novels
- Bookseller catalogs
- Fiction;
Terms of Sale
Books on the Web
Refunds in full within two weeks if book(s) not as described. Although it's a very rare occurrence, if returning books please use similar packaging to what the book was shipped in. Please understand that due to Covid-19, shipping times will be longer than average to all international destinations, including the USA.
About the Seller
Books on the Web
Biblio member since 2003
Winnipeg, Manitoba
About Books on the Web
Scholarly, rare, out-of-print from the social sciences and humanities, with current issues, and labour and radical history our specialties. We carry a large selection of French & German books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
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