The Portable Anaïs Nin
The modern successor — the same job with the full posthumous shelf available.
Read our take
The Anaïs Nin Reader
by Anaïs Nin
The first one-volume Nin: fiction, diary, and criticism selected in 1973, at the height of the fame, as the front door to the shelf.
- 1973
About Anaïs Nin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeThe first attempt to put Nin's whole range between two covers: a 1973 selection from the fiction, the diaries, and the criticism, edited by Philip K. Jason with an introduction by the scholar Anna Balakian, published by Swallow Press while the Diary's fame was cresting. For a generation of readers it served as the front door — the sampler that led to the full volumes. We shelve it as selected writings: Nin's words, an editor's architecture. (Selections — nothing to spoil.)
The story, in more detail
By 1973 the shelf had a navigation problem the Reader was built to solve: five novels in and out of the Cities of the Interior sequence, story collections, criticism, and a multi-volume Diary still growing — with new readers arriving by the lecture-hall-full and no obvious first book. Jason's selection cut across all of it, excerpting the continuous novel, the stories, the Diary, and the critical prose, with Balakian — a leading scholar of Surrealism — introducing Nin's lineage for the newcomers.
Time has changed its role: the individual volumes are all in print, and later selections (The Portable Anaïs Nin, 2011) redid the job with the posthumous decades available. The Reader remains the period document — what the essential Nin looked like from inside the fame, chosen while she was alive to approve it.
What's inside
Selections across the range as it stood in 1973: excerpts from the continuous novel and House of Incest; stories from Under a Glass Bell; passages from the published Diary volumes; and critical prose, with Philip K. Jason's editorial frame and Anna Balakian's introduction placing Nin among the moderns.
Why we recommend it
The fame's own sampler
What 'essential Nin' meant in 1973, chosen inside the moment.
The scholarly stamp
Balakian's introduction was an early academic claim for Nin's place among the moderns.
A reception document
The volume itself is evidence — of the audience, the canon-building, and the shelf as it then stood.
What this book explores
Timeline
1973
Swallow Press publishes the first career-spanning Nin selection, edited by Philip K. Jason.
2011
The Portable Anaïs Nin succeeds it as the standard one-volume introduction.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Swallow Press
- 1973
Reader reviews
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The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934
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The Anaïs Nin Reader: frequently asked questions
What is The Anaïs Nin Reader?
A 1973 one-volume selection from Nin's fiction, diaries, and criticism, edited by Philip K. Jason with an introduction by Anna Balakian, published by Swallow Press.
Did Nin write it?
The writing is hers; the book is an editor's selection — we shelve it as selected writings rather than an original work.
Was it published in her lifetime?
Yes — in 1973, at the height of the Diary's fame, making it the only career-spanning selection she lived to see.
Is it the best introduction to Nin today?
No — The Portable Anaïs Nin (2011) covers the fuller shelf, and the Diary's first volume remains the classic entry. The Reader's interest now is historical.
Who were its editor and introducer?
Philip K. Jason, the Nin scholar and bibliographer, edited the selection; Anna Balakian, the scholar of Surrealism, wrote the introduction.