Henry Miller

Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American writer and, to a lesser extent, painter. He is known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of "novel" that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also an imaginative construct. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.

He was played by Fred Ward in the 1990 movie Henry & June, and Rip Torn in the 1970 film adaptation of Tropic of Cancer.

Biography

Miller was born to tailor Heinrich Miller and Louise Marie Neiting, in Manhattan, New York City, of German Catholic heritage. As a child he lived at 662 Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As a young man, he tried a variety of jobs and briefly attended the City College of New York. In both 1928 and 1929, he spent several months in Paris with his second wife, June Edith Smith (June Miller). He moved to Paris the next year unaccompanied, where he lived until the outbreak of World War II. He lived an impecunious lifestyle that depended on the benevolence of friends, such as Anaïs Nin, who became his lover and financed the first printing of Tropic of Cancer in 1934.

In the fall of 1931, Miller got a job with the Chicago Tribune (Paris edition) as a proofreader, thanks to his friend Alfred Perlès who worked there. Miller took the opportunity to submit some of his articles under Perlès name, since only the editorial staff were permitted to publish in the paper in 1934.

A small number of his works contain detailed accounts of sexual experiences, and his books did much to free the discussion of sexual subjects in American writing from both legal and social restrictions. He continued to write novels that were banned in the United States on grounds of obscenity. Along with Tropic of Cancer, his Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939), were smuggled into his native country, building Miller an underground reputation. One of the first acknowledgements of Henry Miller as a major modern writer was by George Orwell in his essay Inside the Whale ^*, where he wrote in 1940, "Here in my opinion is the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past. Even if that is objected to as an overstatement, it will probably be admitted that Miller is a writer out of the ordinary, worth more than a single glance; and after all, he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer, a mere Jonah, a passive acceptor of evil, a sort of Whitman among the corpses."

In 1940, he returned to the United States settling in Big Sur, California. He continued to produce his vividly written works that challenged contemporary American cultural values and moral attitudes. He spent the last years of his life in Pacific Palisades.

The publication of Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the United States in 1961 led to a series of obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography. The US Supreme Court, in Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein, citing Jacobellis v. Ohio (which was decided the same day in 1964), overruled the state court findings of obscenity and declared the book a work of literature; it was one of the notable events in what has come to be known as the sexual revolution. Elmer Gertz, the lawyer who successfully argued the initial case for the novel's publication in Illinois, became a lifelong friend of Miller's. Volumes of their correspondence have been published.

Miller was also a painter and wrote books about his painting. He was also an amateur pianist.

Miller died in Pacific Palisades, California. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes scattered off Big Sur where he had lived for some time. There are two museums holding Henry Miller's watercolors: The Henry Miller Museum of Art in Omachi City in Nagano, Japan and The Henry Miller Art Museum at Coast Gallery in Big Sur.

Miller's papers were donated to the UCLA Young Research Library Department of Special Collections.

Dan Bern wrote a song called Marilyn, where he hypothesizes that Marilyn Monroe would have been better off marrying Henry Miller, instead of Arthur Miller, because the sex life she would have had with Henry Miller would have been better for her self-esteem, and she might not have committed suicide.

Works

Tropic of Cancer, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1934. ISBN 0802151825
What Are You Going to Do about Alf?, Paris: Printed at author's expense, 1935.
Aller Retour New York, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1935.
Black Spring, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1936. ISBN 0802131824
Max and the White Phagocytes, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1938.
Opus Pistorum, New York: Grove Press, 1938. ISBN 0394533747
Tropic of Capricorn, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1939. ISBN 0802151825
Henry Miller's Hamlet Letters, Vol. I, with Michael Fraenkel, Santurce, Puerto Rico: Carrefour, 1939. ISBN 0809540584
- Vol. II, with Michael Fraenkel, New York: Carrefour, 1941.
- Vol. I complete New York: Carrefour, 1943.
The Cosmological Eye, New York: New Directions, 1939. ISBN 0811201104
The World of Sex, Chicago: Ben Abramson, Argus Book Shop, 1940.
The Colossus of Maroussi, San Francisco: Colt Press, 1941. ISBN 0811201090
The Wisdom of the Heart, New York: New Directions, 1941. ISBN 0811201163
Sunday after the War, New York: New Directions, 1944.
Semblance of a Devoted Past, Berkeley, Calif.: Bern Porter, 1944.
The Plight of the Creative Artist in the United States of America, Houlton, Me.: Bern Porter, 1944.
Echolalia (book)|Echolalia, Berkeley, Calif.: Bern Porter, 1945.
Henry Miller Miscellanea, San Mateo, Calif.: Bern Porter, 1945.
Why Abstract?, with Hilaire Hiller and William Saroyan, New York: New Directions, 1945. ISBN 0838318371
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, New York: New Directions, 1945. ISBN 0811201066
Maurizius Forever, San Francisco: Colt Press, 1946.
Remember to Remember, New York: New Directions, 1947. ISBN 0811203212
Into the Night Life, privately published 1947
The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948.
Sexus (Book One of The Rosy Crucifixion), Paris: Obelisk Press, 1949. ISBN 0875291732
The Waters Reglitterized, San Jose, Calif.: John Kidis, 1950. ISBN 0912264713
The Books in My Life, New York: New Directions, 1952. ISBN 0811201082
Plexus (Book Two of The Rosy Crucifixion), Paris: Olympia Press, 1953. ISBN 0802151795
Quiet Days in Clichy, Paris: Olympia Press, 1956. ISBN 080213016X
The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud, New York: New Directions, 1956. ISBN 0811201155
Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, New York: New Directions, 1957. ISBN 0811201074
The Red Notebook, Highlands, N.C.: Jonathan Williams, 1958.
Reunion in Barcelona, Northwood, England: Scorpion Press, 1959.
Nexus (Book Three of The Rosy Crucifixion), Paris: Obelisk Press, 1960. ISBN 0802151787
To Paint Is to Love Again, Alhambra, Calif.: Cambria Books, 1960.
Watercolors, Drawings, and His Essay "The Angel Is My Watermark," Abrams, 1962.
Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, New York: New Directions, 1962. ISBN 0811203220
Just Wild about Harry, New York: New Directions, 1963. ISBN 0811207242
Greece (with drawings by Anne Poor), New York: Viking Press, 1964.

References

Smith, J. Y. (June 9, 1980). "Author Henry Miller Dies; Famed for Two 'Tropic' Books". The Washington Post, C3.
Anderson, Christiann (March 2004). "Henry Miller: Born to be Wild"

External links

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Biography

Works

References

External links