In Favor of the Sensitive Man
by Anaïs Nin
The late essays: masculinity reconsidered, women's becoming, travel, and craft — the last collection published in her lifetime.
- 1976
About Anaïs Nin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeThe essays of Nin's famous years, gathered in 1976: the title piece's early argument that the culture's remaking of women requires a matching remaking of men — the 'sensitive man' welcomed rather than mocked — alongside pieces on women and creativity, writers and books, travel from Fez to Bali, and the craft doctrine of her lectures in printed form. A Harvest paperback original from Harcourt, it was the last book she published before her death the following January. (Essays — nothing to spoil.)
The story, in more detail
The collection bottles the lecture era in essay form. Most pieces had appeared in the magazines of the early seventies, when editors wanted Nin on everything from eroticism to travel, and the range shows the late platform: cultural argument, portraiture, places, and the permanent subjects of diary and craft. The title essay is the striking one in hindsight — a defense of male gentleness written in 1974, years before the culture found vocabulary for the question.
Published by Harcourt as a Harvest original in 1976, the book closed her lifetime's shelf; Delta of Venus, already in press, would open the posthumous one months later. Read beside A Woman Speaks, it completes the record of what the famous Nin actually said to her era — the spoken version there, the written version here.
What's inside
Essays and articles from the fame years, in four registers: the cultural arguments, led by the title essay's case for the sensitive man; pieces on women, creativity, and becoming; travel writing — Morocco, Bali, and elsewhere — in her sensory key; and the craft essays carrying the lecture doctrine into print. Magazine-length pieces, arranged for the general reader.
Themes and analysis
The sensitive man inside the circle
In the title essay's passages quoted by Rochelle Holt, Nin locates masculine and feminine qualities within each person, rather than assigning them exclusively to separate groups. That move changes the terms of her proposed partnership. Men are not merely asked to accommodate a transformed woman; both figures must be understood as capable of change. The argument still uses a vocabulary of masculine and feminine types, but makes those categories less confining. Its hoped-for resolution of inequality depends on revising the people imagined by the categories, not simply arranging a truce between them.
Travel, memory and argument
In On Truth and Reality, Nin presents rereading Otto Rank as an encounter with an earlier source of her own thinking. As quoted by Rochelle Holt, she recognizes a long influence when she returns to the book. The essay's argument develops through retrospective interpretation: intellectual history and lived experience test one another. Her description of writing in terms of wholeness connects critical prose with that act of recognition. What matters is not simply reporting a theory, but showing how an artist makes it meaningful across a life.
Why we recommend it
The title essay
A short piece that reads decades ahead of its date.
The whole late range
Argument, portrait, travel, craft — the famous Nin's registers in one volume.
The shelf's closing bracket
Her lifetime bibliography ends here; the posthumous era begins with the next book.
What this book explores
Timeline
1970–1974
The essays appear in the magazines of the fame years, the title piece in 1974.
1976
Harcourt publishes the collection as a Harvest original — the lifetime shelf's last book.
2012
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt releases a digital edition of the essay collection.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (Harvest)
- 1976
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
In Favor of the Sensitive Man: frequently asked questions
What is In Favor of the Sensitive Man?
A 1976 collection of Anaïs Nin's essays and articles from her famous years — cultural argument, women and creativity, travel, and craft — the last book published in her lifetime.
What is the title essay about?
It argues that the remaking of women's roles requires a matching remaking of men's — that the gentle, emotionally open man should be welcomed as the movement's ally, not its casualty. It first appeared in 1974.
When were the essays written?
Mostly in the early 1970s, for the magazines of her fame years; the collection gathers them with some earlier pieces.
How does it relate to A Woman Speaks?
They are companions from the same years — A Woman Speaks records the spoken Nin of the lecture halls, this book the written Nin of the magazines.
Was it really her last book?
The last published in her lifetime, in 1976. Delta of Venus was in press when she died in January 1977 and opened the posthumous shelf.
If you like Anaïs Nin
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
Henry Miller
The entangled careers of the Villa Seurat: she financed and prefaced his scandal, he detonated her prose — and each wrote the other into the century's record.
View author
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Martha Gellhorn
War correspondent who covered the Spanish Civil War, D-Day, and conflicts across five more decades; Hemingway's third wife, 1940–1945.
View author
References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document In Favor of the Sensitive Man, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1In Favor of the Sensitive Man
NovelAnaïs Nin, 1976Used 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 In Favor of the Sensitive Man'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 In Favor of the Sensitive Man.
4Anaïs Nin: A Biography
BiographyG. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995Used forUsed to cross-check chronology, publication history, and the circumstances in which In Favor of the Sensitive Man appeared.
5Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin
BiographyLittle, Brown, 1993Used forUsed for an additional scholarly or biographical perspective on In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Anaïs Nin's wider career.
6Google Books — HMH edition record
WebsiteUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the In Favor of the Sensitive Man page.
7Anais Nin: An Understanding of Her Art — public excerpts from the 1997 book
WebsiteScars Publications, 1997Used forSelected primary quotations in The Novel of the Future (title-essay discussion, note 7) and The Philosophic Poet (On Truth and Reality, notes 1 and 3). No complete essay or primary-edition collation; Holt's clinical and biographical assertions are not adopted.
i
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.
Explore more resources