The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1955–1966
by Anaïs Nin
The long approach: Alan Swallow rescues the novels, the diary is readied at last for print, and the volume ends on the edge of fame.
- 1976
About Anaïs Nin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeThe sixth volume is the making-ready: travels through Europe and back, the last continuous-novel books written and gathered, Alan Swallow taking on the whole neglected list, and — the decade's real drama — the diary itself being prepared for publication: the decades of pages reread, the living consulted, the great editing begun with Gunther Stuhlmann. It ends in 1966, at the exact threshold the reader knows is coming: the first volume in press, and sixty-three years of obscurity about to end. (A diary — the closing pages wait behind the reveal.)
The story, in more detail
Every long story about recognition needs the chapter where the machinery finally turns, and this is Nin's. Its quiet hero is Alan Swallow, the Denver publisher who believed in unfashionable books as a matter of principle: he gathered her scattered, out-of-print novels under one roof, issued Cities of the Interior as the single work she had always claimed it was, and gave the fiction a permanent address. Seduction of the Minotaur and Collages both arrive inside this volume's span.
The deeper current is the diary turning to face itself. After decades as the private continent, it becomes a manuscript: Nin rereading her lifetime, weighing what the living could bear, working with Stuhlmann on the cuts and the shape. The entries about editing the diary inside the diary are the volume's strangest, best material — the work examining its own body — and they build to one of the great cliffhangers in autobiography: the volume closes with publication imminent, on the last days of the unknown Anaïs Nin.
The full story
1955–1966: the travel years — Europe revisited, the world widening as the fiction winds down; Swallow's rescue of the novels and the assembly of Cities of the Interior; Collages written as a farewell to fiction (though the diary doesn't yet know it); and the long, careful conversion of the private diary into a publishable book, with all the negotiations — legal, familial, artistic — that the pages themselves record.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
The final entries stand at the door: the first volume of the Diary edited, accepted, and going to press for spring 1966. After eleven hundred pages of preparation across this volume, the diary closes on the eve of its own publication — the woman who had written in private for half a century about to become, at sixty-three, the most public private writer alive. The seventh volume opens on the other side of that door.
Why we recommend it
The Swallow chapters
A portrait of the rarest figure in publishing: the man who keeps unfashionable books alive on principle.
Autobiography's cliffhanger
A diary closing on the eve of its own publication — the form has few stranger or better endings.
The last of the fiction
Seduction of the Minotaur and Collages arrive inside these years — the novelist signing off inside the diarist's record.
What this book explores
Timeline
1959–1961
Swallow takes on the list; Cities of the Interior and then Seduction of the Minotaur appear.
1964
Collages, her last fiction, is published mid-volume.
1965–1966
The diary is edited for publication with Gunther Stuhlmann; the volume closes with the first Diary in press.
1976
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich publishes the sixth volume — the last in her lifetime.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
- 1976
Paperback
- Paperback
- Harcourt / Harvest
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The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1955–1966: frequently asked questions
What years does this volume of the Diary cover?
1955 to 1966 — the travel years, Alan Swallow's rescue of her fiction, and the long preparation of the diary itself for publication, ending just before the first volume appeared.
When was it published?
1976, by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, edited with Gunther Stuhlmann — the sixth volume of the published Diary, and the last to appear in her lifetime.
Who was Alan Swallow?
A Denver publisher devoted to keeping serious, unfashionable writers in print. He collected Nin's scattered novels, published Cities of the Interior as one work, and gave her fiction its permanent home.
Does the volume cover the Diary's publication?
It ends on the very eve of it — the first volume edited and in press for spring 1966. The publication and the fame that followed open Volume Seven.
What fiction did Nin write in these years?
Seduction of the Minotaur (1961) and Collages (1964), her last novel — both published by Alan Swallow inside this volume's span.