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Henry Valentine Miller (26 December 1891 – 7 June 1980) was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional.
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Quotations
Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.
Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.
Every man is working out his destiny in his own way and nobody can be of any help except by being kind, generous, and patient.
Everything remains unsettled forever, depend on it.
For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood.
I am against revolutions because they always involve a return to the status quo.
Encyclopedia
Henry Valentine Miller (26 December 1891 – 7 June 1980) was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.
Biography
Miller was born to tailor Heinrich Miller and Louise Marie Neiting, in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, New York City, of German Catholic heritage. As a child he lived at 662 Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, known in that time (and referred to frequently in his works) as The Fourteenth Ward. As a young man, he was active with the Socialist Party (his "quondam idol" was the Black Socialist Hubert Harrison). He briefly - for only two months - attended the City College of New York. Although he was an exceptional scholar, he could neither be anchored nor submit to the traditional college system of education.
In both 1928 and 1929, he spent several months in Paris with his second wife, June Edith Smith (June Miller) (his first wife was Beatrice Sylvas Wickens, whom he married in 1917). The next year he moved to Paris unaccompanied, and he continued to live there until the outbreak of World War II. He lived an impecunious lifestyle that depended on the benevolence of friends, including Anaïs Nin, who became his lover and financed the first printing of Tropic of Cancer in 1934.
In the fall of 1931, Miller was employed by the Chicago Tribune (Paris edition) as a proofreader, thanks to his friend Alfred Perlès who worked there. Miller took this opportunity to submit some of his own articles under Perlès name, since only the editorial staff were permitted to publish in the paper in 1934. This period in Paris was highly creative for Miller, and during this time he also established a significant and influential network of authors circulating around the Villa Seurat. During this period he was also influenced by the French Surrealists.
His works contain detailed accounts of sexual experiences, and his books did much to free the discussion of sexual subjects in American writing from both legal and social restrictions. He continued to write novels that were banned in the United States on the grounds of obscenity. Along with Tropic of Cancer, his Black Spring (1936) and Tropic of Capricorn (1939) were smuggled into his native country, building Miller an underground reputation. One of the first acknowledgments of Henry Miller as a major modern writer was by George Orwell in his 1940 essay Inside the Whale, where he wrote:
In 1940, he returned to the United States, settling in Big Sur, California, and continued to produce vividly written works that challenged contemporary American cultural values and moral attitudes. He spent the last years of his life in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California.
While Miller was establishing his base in Big Sur, the 'Tropics' books, still banned in the USA, were being published in France by the Obelisk Press and later the Olympia Press. There they were acquiring a slow and steady notoriety among both Europeans and the various enclaves of American cultural exiles. As a result, the books were frequently smuggled into the States, where they would prove to be a major influence on the new Beat generation of American writers (most notably Jack Kerouac) some of whom would adopt stylistic and thematic principles found in Miller's oeuvre.
The publication of Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the United States in 1961 led to a series of obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein, citing Jacobellis v. Ohio (which was decided the same day in 1964), overruled the state court findings of obscenity and declared the book a work of literature; it was one of the notable events in what has come to be known as the sexual revolution. Elmer Gertz, the lawyer who successfully argued the initial case for the novel's publication in Illinois, became a lifelong friend of Miller's. Volumes of their correspondence have been published.
In addition to his literary abilities, Miller was a painter and wrote books about his work in that field. He was a close friend of the French painter Grégoire Michonze. He was also an amateur pianist.
Before his death, Miller filmed with Warren Beatty for his film Reds. He spoke of his remembrances of John Reed and Louise Bryant as part of a series of 'witnesses'. The film was released eighteen months after Miller's death.
Miller died in Pacific Palisades. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes scattered off Big Sur.
Miller's papers were donated to the UCLA Young Research Library Department of Special Collections. The Henry Miller Art Museum at Coast Gallery in Big Sur, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and UCLA all hold a selection of Miller's watercolors, as did The Henry Miller Museum of Art in Omachi City in Nagano, Japan, before closing in 2003. A portion of the correspondence between the Grove Press and Henry Miller are currently housed in the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University. Special Collections at the University of Victoria holds a significant collection of Miller's manuscripts and correspondences, including the corrected typescript for Max and Quiet Days in Clichy, as well as Miller's lengthy correspondence with Alfred Perlès.
Works
- Moloch or, This Gentile World, written in 1927, not published until 1992 (by the Estate of Henry Miller). ISBN 0-80213372-X
- Crazy Cock, written 1928-1930, not published until 1960. ISBN 0-80211412-1
- Tropic of Cancer, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1934.
- What Are You Going to Do about Alf?, Paris: Printed at author's expense, 1935.
- Aller Retour New York, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1935.
- Black Spring, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1936. ISBN 0-8021-3182-4
- Max and the White Phagocytes, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1938.
- Tropic of Capricorn, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1939. ISBN 0-8021-5182-5
- Henry Miller's Hamlet Letters, Vol. I, with Michael Fraenkel, Santurce, Puerto Rico: Carrefour, 1939. ISBN 0-8095-4058-4
- Vol. II, with Michael Fraenkel, New York: Carrefour, 1941.
- Vol. I complete New York: Carrefour, 1943.
- The Cosmological Eye, New York: New Directions, 1939. ISBN 0-8112-0110-4
- The World of Sex, Chicago: Ben Abramson, Argus Book Shop, 1940.
- Oneworld Classics 2007 ISBN 978-1-84749-035-3
- Under the Roofs of Paris (originally published as Opus Pistorum), New York: Grove Press, 1941.
- The Colossus of Maroussi, San Francisco: Colt Press, 1941. ISBN 0-8112-0109-0
- The Wisdom of the Heart, New York: New Directions, 1941. ISBN 0-8112-0116-3
- Sunday after the War, New York: New Directions, 1944.
- Semblance of a Devoted Past, Berkeley, Calif.: Bern Porter, 1944.
- The Plight of the Creative Artist in the United States of America, Houlton, Me.: Bern Porter, 1944.
- Echolalia, Berkeley, Calif.: Bern Porter, 1945.
- Henry Miller Miscellanea, San Mateo, Calif.: Bern Porter, 1945.
- Why Abstract?, with Hilaire Hiller and William Saroyan, New York: New Directions, 1945. ISBN 0-8383-1837-1
- The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, New York: New Directions, 1945. ISBN 0-8112-0106-6
- Maurizius Forever, San Francisco: Colt Press, 1946.
- Remember to Remember, New York: New Directions, 1947. ISBN 0-8112-0321-2
- Into the Night Life, privately published 1947
- The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948.
- Sexus (Book One of The Rosy Crucifixion), Paris: Obelisk Press, 1949. ISBN 0-87529-173-2
- The Waters Reglitterized, San Jose, Calif.: John Kidis, 1950. ISBN 0-912264-71-3
- The Books in My Life, New York: New Directions, 1952. ISBN 0-8112-0108-2
- Plexus (Book Two of The Rosy Crucifixion), Paris: Olympia Press, 1953. ISBN 0-8021-5179-5
- Quiet Days in Clichy, Paris: Olympia Press, 1956. ISBN 0-8021-3016-X London: Oneworld Classics, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84749-036-0
- Recalls and Reflects, New York: Riverside LP RLP 7002/3, 1956
- The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud, New York: New Directions, 1956. ISBN 0-8112-0115-5
- Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, New York: New Directions, 1957. ISBN 0-8112-0107-4
- The Red Notebook, Highlands, N.C.: Jonathan Williams, 1958.
- Reunion in Barcelona, Northwood, England: Scorpion Press, 1959.
- Nexus (Book Three of The Rosy Crucifixion), Paris: Obelisk Press, 1960. ISBN 0-8021-5178-7
- To Paint Is to Love Again, Alhambra, Calif.: Cambria Books, 1960.
- Watercolors, Drawings, and His Essay "The Angel Is My Watermark," Abrams, 1962.
- Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, New York: New Directions, 1962. ISBN 0-8112-0322-0
- Just Wild about Harry, New York: New Directions, 1963. ISBN 0-8112-0724-2
- Greece (with drawings by Anne Poor), New York: Viking Press, 1964.
- Insomnia or The Devil at Large, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1974. ISBN 0-385-9037-4
- Opus Pistorum, New York: Grove Press, 1983. ISBN 0-394-53374-7
Films
Miller was portrayed by Fred Ward in the 1990 movie Henry & June, and by Rip Torn in the 1970 film adaptation of Tropic of Cancer. In the 1970 Jens Jørgen Thorsen adaptation of Quiet Days in Clichy, the Miller-based character of 'Joey' was played by the late Paul Valjean. A subsequent adaptation in 1990 saw Andrew McCarthy play the Miller role as "Henry Miller" himself.
Further reading
- Smith, J. Y. (June 9, 1980). "Author Henry Miller Dies; Famed for Two 'Tropic' Books". The Washington Post, C3.
- Anderson, Christiann (March 2004). "Henry Miller: Born to be Wild"
External links
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- Special Collections, McPherson Library, University of Victoria. Includes mss., painting, and correspondence.*
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- on Folkways Records
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