Now hailed as an American classic,Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards, ushering in a new era of freedom and frankness in modern literature, permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller’s famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s.Tropic of Canceris now considered, as Norman Mailer said, one of the ten or twenty great novels of our century.”
There is an eager vitality and exuberance to the writing which is exhilarating; a rush of spirit into the world as though all the sparkling wines have been uncorked at once; we watchfully hear the language skip, whoop and wheel across Miller’s page.” William H. Gass,The New York Times Book Review
Here is a book which, if such a thing were possible, might restore our appetite for the fundamental realities.” Anais Nin
American literature today begins and ends with the meaning of what Miller has done.” Lawrence Durrell
One of the most remarkable, most truly original authors of this or any age.” Saturday Review
Undeniably salacious but nevertheless serious and important literature, Miller’s novel with its ribald sexuality still provokes (and makes feminist hairs stand on end.)” Victoria A. Brownworth,The Baltimore Sun