Henry Miller
Lived here · 1930
The Hôtel des États-Unis, where Miller lodged in the autumn of 1930 — his first months in Paris, aged thirty-eight and with nothing published.
135 boulevard du Montparnasse
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The former Hôtel des États-Unis, where Henry Miller lodged in the autumn of 1930 — the first months of the Paris decade that turned him into a writer. Now a student residence, in a building that predates his stay.
- 135 boulevard du Montparnasse, 75006 Paris
- Miller lodged here in the autumn of 1930
The place, briefly
Henry Miller arrived in Paris in 1930, thirty-eight years old, with no money, no French and nothing published. The Hôtel des États-Unis on the boulevard du Montparnasse is where he lodged that autumn.
The name is worth a beat. An American with no prospects, in his first Paris months, in a hotel called the United States — it reads like something he would have put in a book, and the Paris books do turn on exactly this sort of accidental irony.
What followed is one of the sharper transformations in twentieth-century writing. Miller had spent his thirties failing to become a writer in New York. Within four years of this address he had written Tropic of Cancer, which was published in Paris in 1934 and banned in the United States for another twenty-seven years.
The building sits in the middle of the Montparnasse he would spend the decade in — a few minutes from the Dôme, the Rotonde, the Sélect and the Coupole, all of which are on his map.
It is no longer a hotel; the building is a student residence now. The structure predates his stay, so this is his fabric even though it is not his use.
Key facts
- The Hôtel des États-Unis
- Autumn 1930 — Miller's first months in Paris
- Thirty-eight, with nothing published
- Tropic of Cancer, published in Paris in 1934
- A student residence; the building predates his stay
- Exterior only
Timeline
Miller arrives in Paris at thirty-eight and lodges at the Hôtel des États-Unis that autumn.
He moves between temporary addresses, including the Hôtel Central with Alfred Perlès.
Tropic of Cancer is published in Paris.
On the map
Questions before you go
Where did Henry Miller first stay in Paris?
At the Hôtel des États-Unis, 135 boulevard du Montparnasse, in the autumn of 1930 — his first months in the city. He was thirty-eight, had no money and nothing published, and had spent his thirties failing to become a writer in New York.
Is the hotel still there?
The building is, but it is no longer a hotel — it now serves as a student residence. The structure predates Miller's stay, which makes it a genuine surviving address rather than the site of a demolished one, but there is nothing to go into.
How long after this did he write Tropic of Cancer?
Four years. Tropic of Cancer was published in Paris in 1934, and banned in the United States until 1961.
Writers who knew this place
Within walking distance
70 bis Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs
Ezra Pound's courtyard studio — the workshop of modernism's impresario during his Paris years, a few doors down the street from Ernest Hemingway's later flat above the sawmill.
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113 Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs
Ernest Hemingway's second flat, above a working sawmill — where the journalism stopped, The Sun Also Rises was finished, and the first marriage ended.
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La Rotonde
The café every taxi driver delivered Americans to — the novel's driest Montparnasse joke, and before that the painters' living room, where the patron took drawings for drinks.
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Black Manikin Press (4 Rue Delambre)
Edward Titus's Montparnasse bookshop and small press, where D. H. Lawrence settled terms on 5 April 1929 for the cheap Paris edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover that finally undercut the pirates.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.