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Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn
by Henry Miller: Boxed Set
 Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn
by Henry Miller: Boxed Set
HENRY MILLER (1891-1980) was an American writer and painter infamous 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 fictional. His most characteristic works of this kind are "Tropic of Cancer," "Tropic of Capricorn," and "Black Spring." His books were banned in the United States for their [allegedly] lewd content until 1964 when a court ruling overturned this order, acknowledging Miller’s work as literature in what became one of the most celebrated victories of the sexual revolution.
Forty years have passed since Grove Press first published Henry Miller's landmark masterpiece—an act that would forever change the face of American literature. Initially banned in America as obscene, Tropic of Cancer was first published in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards permitted its publication. Tropic of Cancer is now considered, as Norman Mailer said, "one of the ten or twenty great novels of our century." Also banned in America for almost thirty years, Tropic of Capricorn is now considered a cornerstone of modern literature. Together, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn are a lasting testament to one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century and his contribution not only to literature but to the cause of free speech.
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