The Mystic of Sex
by Anaïs Nin
The stray pieces, gathered: four decades of essays and reviews, led by the 1930 Lawrence piece that started her public writing.
- 1995
About Anaïs Nin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeA posthumous sweep of the writing that never made her books: essays, reviews, and articles from 1930 to 1974, titled for the earliest and most telling item — 'The Mystic of Sex,' her 1930 essay on D. H. Lawrence, the first public appearance of the sensibility that became the Unprofessional Study and everything after. Across the four decades the collection tracks her critical voice from the Paris apprenticeship through the fame years, in pieces written for magazines and occasions rather than posterity. (Essays — nothing to spoil.)
The story, in more detail
Every long career leaves a scatter — the review written for a friend's journal, the introduction, the article commissioned and forgotten — and Nin's scatter had unusual range: it begins before her first book and ends with her fame. The title essay is the collection's anchor and its argument: published in 1930, before the Unprofessional Study, it is her earliest public criticism, already reading Lawrence as a mystic of the body — the position her whole aesthetic would elaborate.
Gathered and published in the 1990s wave of Nin recovery, the collection serves two readers at once: completists get the bibliography's missing entries in one place, and critics get the connective tissue — the occasional prose that shows the doctrine of the famous books being tried out, piece by piece, across the century's middle decades.
What's inside
Uncollected prose across four decades and its registers: the earliest criticism, led by the 1930 Lawrence essay; book reviews and literary pieces from the American years; occasional essays, introductions, and articles from the fame decade; arranged to show the through-line — the body, the dream, and the interior life, argued in whatever venue the moment offered.
Why we recommend it
The earliest Nin
The 1930 Lawrence essay is the sensibility's first public appearance — before any of the books.
The connective tissue
The occasional prose that links the famous titles, showing the arguments being rehearsed.
One-stop scatter
Four decades of fugitive pieces, spared the microfilm.
What this book explores
Timeline
1930
'The Mystic of Sex' appears — her first published criticism, two years before the Lawrence book.
1930–1974
The uncollected pieces accumulate across magazines and occasions.
1995
Capra Press gathers the scatter into one volume.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Capra Press
- 1995
Reader reviews
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In Favor of the Sensitive Man
The essays she did collect in her lifetime — this volume holds the rest.
Read our take
The Mystic of Sex: frequently asked questions
What is The Mystic of Sex?
A posthumous collection of Anaïs Nin's uncollected essays, reviews, and articles from 1930 to 1974, titled for her 1930 essay on D. H. Lawrence.
What is the title essay?
'The Mystic of Sex,' her 1930 piece on Lawrence — her earliest public criticism, published before her first book, already reading him as a mystic of the body.
When was the collection published?
In 1995, by Capra Press, during the decade's wave of posthumous Nin publishing.
Who is it for?
Completists and scholars first — the pieces are occasional by nature, and their interest is the development they document across four decades.
How does it relate to her Lawrence book?
The title essay is that book's seed: the 1930 magazine piece whose argument became D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study two years later.