Sexus by Henry Miller

Paperback

512 pages

Henry Miller’s monumental venture in self-revelation was begun with his Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, which on their American publication were hailed as “miraculous,” “superb,” “ribald,” “brilliant,” and “shamelessly shocking.” Sexus is the first volume of a series called The Rosy Crucifixion, in which Miller completes his major life work. It was written in the United States during World War II, and first published in Paris in 1949. Of this remarkable project, Lawrence Durrell has said: “The completion of his seven-volume autobiography, if it fulfills the promise of what he has already given us, will put his name amongst the three or four great figures of the age.”

Henry Miller was born in New York City on December 26, 1891. Miller briefly attended City College of New York, but abandoned his university studies after only two months. In 1930 Miller traveled to Paris, where he stayed until 1940. During this period he was financed by his lover and fellow writer, Anaïs Nin, who helped him obtain a first printing of the celebrated and controversial Tropic of Cancer (1934); the book was banned in the United States at the time Grove Press printed it in 1961, which promptly initiated a costly, but successful, Supreme Court case to overrule the ban.