Tropic Of Cancer [1934] - Henry Miller

"I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul."

A stunningly original (for its time), autobiographical novel from the "Dirty Old Man of American Letters," Tropic of Cancer was banned from publication in the United States for almost 30 years. The plotless masterpiece details Miller's life as an expatriate in Paris - scrounging for food, writing and, of course, getting laid.

Anais Nin on Tropic of Cancer: "This book brings with it a wind that blows down the dead and hollow trees whose roots are withered and lost in the barren soil of our times. This book goes to the roots and digs under, digs for subterranean springs."

Tropic of Cancer Trivia

• Miller was 43 years old when Tropic of Cancer was first published in 1934 by Obelisk Press in Paris.
• Tropic of Cancer was finally published in the United States in 1964 after the Supreme Court ruled the book as not being obscene (Grove Press, Inc. vs. Gerstein).
• Ezra Pound on Tropic of Cancer: "At last, an unprintable book that's readable."
• Miller's pet names for his second wife June's breasts: Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.
• George Orwell called Tropic of Cancer "the most important book of the mid-1930s."
• Samuel Beckett referred to Tropic of Cancer as "a momentous event in the history of modern writing."