The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934
Several stories lift directly from these years' entries — 'Birth' above all.
Read our take
Under a Glass Bell
by Anaïs Nin
The stories that broke the silence — hand-set on her own press in 1944, and reviewed into legitimacy by Edmund Wilson.
- 1944
About Anaïs Nin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeThirteen brief stories from the Paris years and their wreckage — the houseboat on the Seine, the ragpickers, Artaud transfigured, the glass-belled family sealed in its past — each compressed to the border of prose poetry. Rejected everywhere, Nin printed the book herself; Edmund Wilson's New Yorker review did the rest.
The story, in more detail
By 1944 Nin had given up on American publishing and become her own: with borrowed money and a second-hand press in a Greenwich Village loft — the Gemor Press — she and a friend hand-set the stories, three hundred copies, engravings by Ian Hugo. It is one of the era's great acts of literary self-reliance, and it worked: Edmund Wilson reviewed the little book warmly in The New Yorker, doors opened, and the American career the Paris years had never yielded finally began.
The stories themselves are the Paris decade in miniature: the houseboat moored in the Seine (her own), the ragpickers of the fortifications, the fierce portrait of a mad poet drawn from Artaud, and the title story's aristocratic family preserved under glass, breathing yesterday's air. They stand with the diary's best pages — the same eye, disciplined into forms the length of a held breath.
What's inside
Thirteen stories, most under ten pages. The anchors: 'Houseboat,' the drifting Seine world Nin lived on in the late thirties; 'Under a Glass Bell,' the sealed family in its museum-house; 'Je Suis le Plus Malade des Surréalistes,' the Artaud portrait; 'Ragtime,' the city's scavengers transfiguring its debris; and 'Birth,' the unflinching account carried over from the diary's most famous passage. Dream logic throughout, but disciplined — each piece a single image held to the light until it gives up its story.
Read it as the hinge of her career: Paris material, American printing, and the compression that made even skeptics — Wilson first among them — concede the prose was the real thing.
Themes and analysis
The key to another current
In the Houseboat passage quoted by John Harty, the narrator's key promises access to an apparently boundless life, yet she worries about dropping it into the river. Freedom depends on a small, easily lost object. The boat's earlier escape from its moorings sharpens that tension: drifting away can mean losing a home as well as escaping confinement. Once she enters, familiar geography gives way to imagined distant waterways. The scene makes uncertainty part of release, rather than presenting the threshold as a secure border between ordinary life and dream.
Time without an hour
Ragtime reverses the usual value of damaged things: the ragpicker welcomes what can be remade, while a finished object belongs in a museum. The catalogue of missing parts makes incompleteness productive rather than merely pitiable. Yet Harty draws attention to the handless clock whose ticking continues without a readable hour, hearing a threat within its activity. That complication matters: movement need not amount to progress, and a fragment's new possibilities do not erase its damage. The story's transformations remain unsettled, not a simple promise that everything broken will be repaired.
Why we recommend it
The best door in
Thirteen small rooms instead of sixty years of diary — her sensibility complete, at story length.
A self-publishing legend
The hand-set edition is one of modern literature's great acts of stubbornness rewarded.
'Birth'
The diary's most devastating passage, given its final form — reason enough for the book.
What this book explores
Timeline
Late 1930s
Nin’s life aboard La Belle Aurore on the Seine supplies part of the Paris world behind the stories.
1944
Gemor Press publishes the hand-set collection with engravings by Ian Hugo.
1944 — reception
Edmund Wilson reviews the small-press volume in The New Yorker, bringing it to a larger American literary audience.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Gemor Press
- 1944
Paperback
- Paperback
- Swallow Press
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Winesburg, Ohio
The shelf's other suite of compressed lives — grotesques in Ohio, dreamers under glass.
Read our takeUnder a Glass Bell: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Under a Glass Bell?
Anaïs Nin. The story collection was published in 1944.
What is Under a Glass Bell about?
Thirteen brief stories from the Paris years and their wreckage — the houseboat on the Seine, the ragpickers, Artaud transfigured, a family sealed under glass in its own past — each compressed to the border of prose poetry.
How was Under a Glass Bell published?
Rejected everywhere, Nin printed it herself — hand-setting it on a second-hand press in a Greenwich Village loft, the Gemor Press.
What made it a success?
Edmund Wilson's review in The New Yorker, which finally brought Nin the recognition American publishers had withheld.
What kind of stories are they?
Dreamlike, surrealist-inflected short fictions drawn from her own Paris life — the diary's material distilled toward the poetic.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Under a Glass Bell, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Under a Glass Bell
NovelAnaïs Nin, 1944Used 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 place Under a Glass Bell within Anaïs Nin's published work and verify its bibliographic context.
3Anaïs Nin Papers — diary, March–September 1938
ArchiveUCLA Library Special CollectionsUsed forUsed for independent biographical, archival, or historical context surrounding Anaïs Nin's career and the period in which Under a Glass Bell appeared.
4Anaïs Nin: A Biography
BiographyG. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995Used forUsed to cross-check authorship, chronology, and the work's place in Anaïs Nin's wider catalogue.
5Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin
BiographyLittle, Brown, 1993Used forUsed to verify Anaïs Nin's bibliography and place Under a Glass Bell within the broader chronology of Anaïs Nin's career.
6Anais Nin's Under a Glass Bell: From Interior Fatality to Psychological Motion — public thesis transcription
WebsiteUniversity of Richmond; transcription hosted by Paperzz, 1976Used forSelected Houseboat quotations and Ragtime discussion in Harty's 1976 thesis, read in its public transcription; not a complete primary-text reading.
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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.
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