Delta of Venus
The commission's famous first harvest — and the book 'Marcel' partially overlaps.
Read our take
Auletris
by Anaïs Nin
The trunk's last surprise: collector-era erotica thought lost for seventy years, recovered and published in 2016.
- 2016
About Anaïs Nin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeFour decades after Delta of Venus, the dollar-a-page commission produced one more book. Auletris gathers two long pieces from the 1940s erotica — 'Life in Provincetown' and 'Marcel' — that survived outside the trunk, in a rare carbon typescript descended from the collector's copies. Published in 2016 by Sky Blue Press, edited by the Nin scholar Paul Herron, it is the latest and strangest chapter in the strangest publishing story of her career: work written anonymously for one reader in 1940s New York, reaching the public seventy years on. (Stories — nothing here to spoil.)
The story, in more detail
The commission's history explains the gap. What Nin wrote for the collector went out as typescripts; what she kept became Delta of Venus and Little Birds after her death. But not everything came home. Auletris preserves material that survived in a separately made carbon — a copy bearing the title 'Auletris' (Greek: a female flute player) — which passed through collectors' hands for decades before scholarship caught up with it. 'Marcel' partially overlaps text Delta of Venus printed; 'Life in Provincetown' was essentially unknown.
Publication came from inside the Nin world: Sky Blue Press, the small house devoted to her work, with Paul Herron — editor of the unexpurgated diary volumes — establishing the text and the provenance. For readers, the interest is double: more of the forties erotica in its unretouched register, and a case study in how a scattered, half-anonymous body of work keeps yielding finds a lifetime after it was written.
What's inside
Two long pieces from the 1940s commission. 'Life in Provincetown' turns the Cape Cod art colony Nin knew from wartime summers into a linked erotic portrait of a town — painters, fishermen, models, and visitors circling one another through the season. 'Marcel' — a version of which partially appeared in Delta of Venus — follows its title character and the narrator through the commission's more Parisian register. Both run in the mode the collector paid for and Nin subverted: explicit by assignment, psychological by instinct.
Themes and analysis
The carbon that survived
Herron's introduction presents recovery as a problem of evidence, not simply a lost masterpiece returning intact. A numbered carbon copy and an auction inquiry unsettle the earlier assumption that the published collections had exhausted the usable material. Yet the surviving object does not supply every missing link in its journey. This distinction matters when reading Auletris: its difference from the familiar collections includes the history of selection and transmission, so apparent roughness need not be mistaken for the shape Nin would have chosen for public publication.
A wartime summer in Provincetown
Laura Frost's reading of Life in Provincetown draws attention to the thin wall separating a listener from the woman next door. The barrier makes the coastal setting more than picturesque scenery: it turns proximity into incomplete knowledge. Sounds provoke the neighbor's imagination, while shifts of viewpoint make readers aware of who is interpreting whom. Frost also cautions against treating the story's freedoms as uncomplicated liberation. Its later representations of violence disturb that promise, making the apparent openness of the artists' colony a starting point for scrutiny rather than a guarantee of sympathy.
Why we recommend it
The find itself
A genuine literary recovery: commission-era Nin surviving outside the famous trunk.
Provincetown, unbuttoned
The wartime Cape colony the diary sketches politely gets the collector's-commission treatment.
The story about the story
Herron's editorial account of the carbon's journey is half the book's fascination.
What this book explores
Timeline
circa 1940–1945
The pieces are written in the dollar-a-page commission for the anonymous collector.
2016
Sky Blue Press publishes the recovered typescript, edited by Paul Herron.
2017
Publisher Paul Herron discusses the recovery and publication of the previously uncollected erotica in an interview with Foreword Reviews.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Sky Blue Press
- 2016
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Little Birds
The second collection from the trunk; Auletris is the material that escaped it.
Read our take
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1939–1944
The wartime diary recording the collector years these pages come from.
Read our takeAuletris: frequently asked questions
What is Auletris?
A 2016 collection of Anaïs Nin's 1940s collector-commissioned erotica — two long pieces, 'Life in Provincetown' and 'Marcel', recovered from a carbon typescript that survived outside the manuscripts behind Delta of Venus and Little Birds.
Why did it appear only in 2016?
The typescript went out to the collector in the 1940s and survived in private hands for decades; Sky Blue Press published it once the text and provenance were established by the Nin scholar Paul Herron.
Is the material new?
Mostly. 'Life in Provincetown' was essentially unknown; a version of 'Marcel' partially overlaps text that appeared in Delta of Venus.
What does the title mean?
An auletris was a female flute player of the ancient Greek symposium — the title carried by the surviving carbon copy.
Should I start with it?
No — read Delta of Venus and Little Birds first. Auletris is for readers who want the rest of the commission and the recovery story around it.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Auletris, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Auletris
NovelAnaïs Nin, 2016Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Anaïs Nin — biography
WebsiteThe Anaïs Nin FoundationUsed forUsed to verify Auletris's bibliographic context and its place within Anaïs Nin's published work.
3Anaïs Nin Papers — diary, March–September 1938
ArchiveUCLA Library Special CollectionsUsed forUsed for independent archival, institutional, or historical context surrounding Anaïs Nin and Auletris.
4Anaïs Nin: A Biography
BiographyG. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995Used forUsed to cross-check chronology, publication history, and the circumstances in which Auletris appeared.
5Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin
BiographyLittle, Brown, 1993Used forUsed for an additional scholarly or biographical perspective on Auletris and Anaïs Nin's wider career.
6Foreword Reviews — interview with Paul Herron
WebsiteUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Auletris page.
7Introduction to Auletris — public preview in A Café in Space, Volume 14
WebsiteSky Blue Press / Everand, 2017Used forUses the publicly displayed opening of Herron's introduction for the carbon copies, editorial selection and auction inquiry, without claiming a complete provenance or manuscript collation.
8Third-Rail Erotica — Auletris
WebsiteLos Angeles Review of Books, 2016Used forAttributes the reading of narrative barriers and violence to Frost's critical account and quoted passages; no complete story or collection was collated.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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