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Illustrated portrait of Henry Miller

A character in The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934

Henry Miller

The American writer she met in the winter of 1931, when he was broke and unpublished. He appears in the diary more than anyone else — talking, borrowing, and writing the book that became Tropic of Cancer.

What they want in in Nin's account

To get to the bottom of his wife June, and to finish the book he is writing about her.

Henry Miller in the atlas — books, places, and life

The book

Cover of The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934 by Anaïs Nin
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934Anaïs Nin, 1966

The century's most famous journal opens on Louveciennes, 1931 — Miller at the table, June in the doorway, and a woman writing it all down as it happens.

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At a glance

In the book
'Henry' — an American writer of forty in Paris, with no money and no publisher
Where he appears
From the first entry to the last
Where he lives
A friend's hotel room, then the Clichy flat shared with Alfred Perlès, then a studio in the Villa Seurat
What she does for him
Types, edits, feeds, houses, prefaces, and pays for the printing of Tropic of Cancer
The real person
Henry Valentine Miller · 1891–1980 · New York

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Henry Miller was an American writer of forty living in Paris on other people's meals. A lawyer named Richard Osborn brought him out to Nin's house at Louveciennes for dinner in the winter of 1931. Miller had already read her manuscript on D. H. Lawrence, and his verdict had reached her first: "I have never read such strong truths told with such delicacy." He arrived in a suit somebody had discarded, wanted to know who lived in the house and what each of them did, and then sat by the fire and talked about himself for the rest of the evening (page 14).

From that night he is the book's constant. He writes to her daily, gives her his watercolours, walks her through Clichy and Montparnasse, takes her to a brothel on the Rue Blondel because she says she is curious, and hands her chapter after chapter of the manuscript that became Tropic of Cancer. She types for him, feeds him, buys his curtains and his shoes, argues with him about whether illusion and lying are the same thing, writes the preface to his novel, and finally pays the printer. What she says she got back was the city: he took her out of her house and into the streets.

She is not gentle about him. She writes that he only sees the ugliness in people, that hatred is the fuel that makes him work, that he begs and borrows, and that he is cruel to the friend who loves him most. She also writes that in a room he is mild, curious about everything, and the only person she knows who is completely at home in the present moment.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The first eveningLouveciennes, winter 1931. He interrupts a serious argument between two other guests by laughing, explains that he does not care who is right because he is too happy, and then goes round the house asking questions about everyone in it (pages 14–15).
  • The faceSometimes impenetrable, sometimes flushed, sometimes so pale the blood seems to have gone out of it, with blue eyes that turn moist without warning. His eyes tire from proofreading at the newspaper; as a child his parents laid him in the room next to the card game with wet towels over them (page 75).
  • Two of himNin keeps separating the man from the writer. In conversation he is gentle and can say delicate things; at the desk he writes against something, to attack and ridicule, and she says the anger that fuels him poisons her (page 62).
  • The Clichy kitchenA workman's flat next to Montmartre with uncarpeted stairs, thin walls, two rooms and a kitchen. The kitchen table is buried in manuscripts and notes; he washes the dishes in a suit too small for him and is embarrassed by his own tidiness, because June told him no real artist would bother (pages 68–69, 92).
  • The Rue BlondelHe offers to take her to a brothel and she goes. She records the swinging door, the price being haggled, the red velvet room with a mirror set into the canopy, and how casually the two women went about it (pages 65–66).
  • How he uses everythingHe listens to her describe the research she is doing for her analyst on the chronicles of the plague, decides it fits his own argument, and fires questions until he has the material. She notes it without complaint: he uses everything (page 198).
  • The cruelty she could not overlookHe stops his flatmate from coming to a meeting purely to enjoy the disappointment, and tells her so. Her friendship with him goes cold for a day, and she traces the reaction back to her father's beatings (pages 76–79).
  • Getting the book printedThe publisher Jack Kahane has run out of nerve and money. Nin raises the money, writes a preface that Otto Rank hands back with "Wonderful. Too good, too good for the world", and Tropic of Cancer reaches the printer. Miller, who has just insulted Kahane, tells her he destroys all her work (pages 330–331, 338, 360).
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