The Unknown Henry Miller: A Seeker in Big Sur

“A must read for those who thought they knew—and those who know nothing—about the shocking Tropic of Cancer genius who pushed the censorial envelope” (Myra MacPherson, award-winning author).

Henry Miller was one of the most distinctive voices in twentieth-century literature, yet he remains misunderstood. Better known in Europe than in his native America for most of his career, Miller achieved international success and celebrity during the 1960s when his banned “Paris” books—beginning with Tropic of Cancer—were published for the first time stateside, and judged by the Supreme Court not to be obscene. The Unknown Henry Miller recounts the writer’s career from its beginnings in Paris in the 1930s but focuses on his years living in Big Sur, California, from 1944 to 1961, during which he wrote many of his most important books, including The Rosy Crucifixiontrilogy, married and divorced twice, raised two children, painted watercolors, and tried to live out a credo of self-realization.

Written with the cooperation of the Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin estates, The Unknown Henry Miller draws on material previously unavailable to biographers, including interviews with Lepska Warren, Miller’s third wife. Behind the “bad boy” image, Arthur Hoyle finds a man whose challenge of literary sexual taboos was part of a broader assault on the dehumanization of man and commercialization during the postwar years, and he makes the case for restoring this groundbreaking writer to his rightful place in the American literary canon.

“The best book ever written about my father.” —Tony Miller