Author Guide · Autobiographical Fiction
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In 1930 Henry Miller, a 38-year-old former personnel manager at Western Union, moved to Paris alone with almost no money. Four years later the Obelisk Press published his first book, Tropic of Cancer, with the printing paid for by his lover Anaïs Nin. US Customs banned it. When Grove Press finally published it in America in 1961, booksellers faced more than 60 obscenity lawsuits in over 21 states, until the Supreme Court cleared the book in 1964. By then Miller was living in California, painting watercolours and finishing a trilogy about his second wife, June. This guide covers his 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key books · 1934–1960 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Henry Miller’s best-known books are Tropic of Cancer (1934), Tropic of Capricorn (1939), The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) and The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, Sexus (1949), Plexus (1953) and Nexus (1960). Start with Tropic of Cancer; if you want Miller without the sexual explicitness, read The Colossus of Maroussi, the book he himself rated highest.
Where to Start with Henry Miller
If you want the book that started the fight
→ Tropic of Cancer (1934) — Paris in the early 1930s, banned in the US for three decades.
If you want his best travel writing
→ The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) — Greece in 1939, and the book Miller considered his best.
If you want his New York years
→ Tropic of Capricorn (1939) — Brooklyn, the telegraph company and the woman he calls Mara.
If you want the later, calmer Miller
→ Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957) — life on the Big Sur coast.
12 Henry Miller Books, in Order
Tropic of Cancer
A first-person account of a penniless American writer drifting through Paris in the early 1930s: borrowed rooms, free meals, prostitutes and long monologues on art and death. The Obelisk Press published it in 1934, with Anaïs Nin financing the print run. US Customs banned the edition; Grove Press’s 1961 American edition led to more than 60 obscenity lawsuits before the Supreme Court overruled the state findings in 1964. Time later included it among the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005, and Joseph Strick filmed it in 1970 with Rip Torn and Ellen Burstyn.
Black Spring
Ten pieces, including “The Fourteenth Ward” and “The Tailor Shop”, written in 1932–33 while Miller lived in Clichy, a suburb of Paris. In a 1949 recording he said he liked it best of everything he wrote in that period. Obscenity law kept it out of American bookshops until 1963.
Tropic of Capricorn
The companion to Tropic of Cancer, set earlier, in New York: the narrator’s years hiring and firing messengers at the “Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company”, modelled on Miller’s job at Western Union, and his first meeting with the woman he calls Mara. Parts of it reuse his unpublished first novel, Clipped Wings. It too appeared first in Paris and was banned in the US.
The Cosmological Eye
A collection of stories and essays published by New Directions in 1939: the first Miller book published in the United States, at a time when his novels could only be smuggled in.
The Colossus of Maroussi
In 1939, invited by Lawrence Durrell, who was living on Corfu, Miller left Paris and spent about nine months in Greece, travelling to Athens, Crete, Hydra, Poros and Delphi until the war forced him home. The “Colossus” of the title is the Greek poet and talker George Katsimbalis. Miller wrote most of it in New York and said it came “effortlessly, often with tears streaming down my face”; he regarded it as his best book.
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
Back in the United States after nearly ten years in Paris, Miller set off in October 1940 on a year-long drive across the country with the painter Abraham Rattner, who did most of the driving. Stops included New Orleans, Eudora Welty in Jackson, Mississippi, and the Grand Canyon. The America he describes is cruel, sterile and indifferent to its artists. Doubleday rejected it in 1941; New Directions published it in 1945, followed by Remember to Remember (1947).
The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder
A short fable about August, a famous clown who wants to give his audiences lasting happiness and gets only laughter. Miller wrote it in 1938 at the request of the painter Fernand Léger, who then rejected the text. In the epilogue Miller writes that “The clown is a poet in action.”
Sexus
The first volume of The Rosy Crucifixion, begun in 1942 and published in Paris in two volumes in 1949: the break-up of the narrator’s first marriage, to Maude, and his courtship of and marriage to Mona, based on June Miller, in Brooklyn in the 1920s. It was banned the year after publication and the publisher was prosecuted.
Plexus
Published in English by the Olympia Press in Paris in 1953, in two volumes. The marriage to Mona continues while the narrator, having left the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company, tries to become a writer.
Quiet Days in Clichy
Joey and his roommate Carl look for food and women in Clichy in the early 1930s, drawn from the years Miller shared a flat there with his friend Alfred Perlès. He wrote it in New York in 1940, revised it in Big Sur and published it with the Olympia Press in 1956; Grove brought it out in the US in 1965. It was filmed in Denmark in 1970 and by Claude Chabrol in 1990, with Andrew McCarthy.
Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch
Portraits of the writers, mystics and neighbours on the Big Sur coast, where Miller settled in 1944, and of his children Tony and Val. The third part, “Paradise Lost”, tells how the French astrologer Conrad Moricand came to live with him in 1947 and how badly it went. The title comes from the fruit in Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.
Nexus
The last volume of the trilogy. Mona grows close to Anastasia, based on the artist Jean Kronski; the two women leave for Paris, Mona comes back alone, and the book ends with the narrator and his wife setting off for Paris themselves. Grove Press published all three volumes in the US in 1965. A draft sequel, Paris 1928, appeared in English in 2012.
In What Order to Read Henry Miller
Miller wrote about his own life out of order. The two Tropics came first, but Tropic of Capricorn and The Rosy Crucifixion cover his New York years in the 1920s, before the Paris of Tropic of Cancer. If you want the life in sequence, read Tropic of Capricorn, Sexus, Plexus and Nexus, then Tropic of Cancer and Quiet Days in Clichy.
Most readers start with Tropic of Cancer in publication order, which shows how the style was formed. The travel books and Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch stand alone and can be read at any point; they are also the place to start if the sexual content of the novels is a problem for you.
A reading path
1. Tropic of Cancer (1934)
2. The Colossus of Maroussi (1941)
3. Tropic of Capricorn (1939)
4. Sexus (1949)
5. Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957)
Everything Else Henry Miller Published
Beyond the 12 key books: 23 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Essays, criticism and travel
8
8 books · 1938–1964
- 1938Max and the White Phagocytesstories and essays, Obelisk Press
- 1941The Wisdom of the Heartessays
- 1944Sunday After the Waressays
- 1947Remember to Remembersecond volume of The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
- 1952The Books in My Lifeon the books that shaped him
- 1956The Time of the Assassinsa study of Rimbaud
- 1962Stand Still Like the Hummingbirdessays
- 1964Henry Miller on Writinghis notes on craft
Shorter books, art and memoir
9
9 books · 1935–1980
- 1935Aller Retour New Yorkan early Obelisk Press book
- 1940The World of Sexan essay
- 1956A Devil in Paradisethe Moricand story, later part of Big Sur
- 1960To Paint Is to Love Againon his watercolours
- 1971My Life and Timesan illustrated autobiography
- 1976Henry Miller’s Book of Friendsmemoir
- 1977Sextetsix essays
- 1978My Bike and Other Friendsmemoir
- 1980The World of Lawrenceon D. H. Lawrence
Letters and posthumous books
6
6 books · 1963–2012
- 1963A Private Correspondencehis letters with Lawrence Durrell
- 1965Letters to Anaïs Nincorrespondence
- 1983Opus Pistorumerotica attributed to Miller; authorship disputed
- 1991Crazy Cockan early novel written 1928–30
- 1992Moloch: or, This Gentile Worldan early novel written 1927–28
- 2012Paris 1928the abandoned sequel to Nexus
The years · 1891–1980
Quick facts about Henry Miller
- Known for
- Writing openly about sex and poverty in autobiographical novels so explicit that they were banned in the United States for almost three decades.
- 1891
- Born in Yorkville, Manhattan
- 1934
- Tropic of Cancer
- 1944
- Settles at Big Sur, California
- 1964
- Supreme Court clears Tropic of Cancer
- 1980
- Dies in Pacific Palisades, aged 88
- Born
- 26 December 1891, Yorkville, Manhattan; his father was a German-American tailor
- Died
- 7 June 1980, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles
- Worked
- Western Union, 1920–1924, before writing full time
- Lived
- Paris 1930–1939; Big Sur from 1944; Pacific Palisades from 1963
- Married
- Five times, including June Mansfield (1924–1934), the Mona of his novels
- Also
- Painted an estimated 2,000 watercolours; nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973
The red mark is 1934: Tropic of Cancer, published in Paris and banned in the United States.
How Henry Miller Writes: Life Told as It Happened
Almost everything Miller wrote is about Henry Miller. The narrator is usually Miller himself under his own name or a nickname, his wives and friends appear under thin disguises, and he wrote the same years more than once: his New York life in the 1920s fills Tropic of Capricorn and all three volumes of The Rosy Crucifixion. He presented this as autobiography, but he rearranged and exaggerated freely.
The books have little plot. They move from scene to monologue to surreal digression, in long run-on sentences that can be comic, obscene and lyrical on the same page. George Orwell, in his 1940 essay “Inside the Whale”, called him “the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value” to appear in the English-speaking world for some years, and also “a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer”.
Sex is described bluntly and often, and the women in the novels are seen almost only through the narrator’s desire, which is the basis of the later feminist case against him. The travel books show another side: in The Colossus of Maroussi and Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch the same energy goes into landscapes, friends and conversation.
Frequently asked questions about Henry Miller’s books
How many books has Henry Miller written?
More than 50 books, pamphlets and collections were published under his name, several after his death. Twelve are the key books on this page, from Tropic of Cancer (1934) to Nexus (1960); the rest are essays, letters, short memoirs and early novels published posthumously.
What are Henry Miller’s books in order?
Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), Tropic of Capricorn (1939), The Cosmological Eye (1939), The Colossus of Maroussi (1941), The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945), The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder (1948), Sexus (1949), Plexus (1953), Quiet Days in Clichy (1956), Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957) and Nexus (1960).
Where should I start with Henry Miller?
With Tropic of Cancer, the book everything else grows from. If you would rather start without the sexual explicitness, read The Colossus of Maroussi, his account of Greece in 1939.
What is Henry Miller’s most famous book?
Tropic of Cancer (1934), his novel of Paris in the early 1930s. It is famous as much for its legal history as for its content: banned in the US for nearly 30 years, then the subject of more than 60 obscenity lawsuits after Grove Press published it in 1961.
Why was Tropic of Cancer banned?
US Customs banned the 1934 Paris edition as obscene because of its explicit sexual language and scenes. After Grove Press published it in the US in 1961, booksellers were sued in over 21 states. In 1964 the US Supreme Court, in Grove Press, Inc. v. Gerstein, overruled the state findings that the book was obscene.
What is The Rosy Crucifixion?
Miller’s semi-autobiographical trilogy, Sexus (1949), Plexus (1953) and Nexus (1960), about his years in Brooklyn in the 1920s with his second wife, June, called Mona in the books. It was published first in Paris and appeared in the US only in 1965.
Is Henry Miller considered misogynistic?
Many critics have argued so. In Sexual Politics (1970) the feminist writer Kate Millett devoted closing chapters to what she called the misogyny of Miller, D. H. Lawrence and Norman Mailer, and the charge has followed his reputation since. Orwell, writing in 1940, praised his prose while calling him “amoral”.
Have Henry Miller’s books been made into films?
Yes. Tropic of Cancer was filmed by Joseph Strick in 1970, and Quiet Days in Clichy twice, in Denmark in 1970 and by Claude Chabrol in 1990. Miller himself is played by Fred Ward in Henry & June (1990), based on Anaïs Nin’s diaries, and he appears as one of the “witnesses” in Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981).
What was Henry Miller’s relationship with Anaïs Nin?
They met in Paris in the early 1930s and became lovers. Nin supported him financially and paid for the first printing of Tropic of Cancer with money borrowed from the psychoanalyst Otto Rank. Their relationship, and Nin’s with June Miller, is the subject of Henry & June.
When did Henry Miller die?
On 7 June 1980, at his home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, aged 88. The Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur was founded the following year by his friend Emil White.
Footnotes
- Henry Miller — Wikipedia
- Henry Miller bibliography — Wikipedia
- Tropic of Cancer (novel) — Wikipedia
- The Rosy Crucifixion — Wikipedia
- Dirt for Dirt’s Sake: the trials of Tropic of Cancer — Brooklyn Public Library
- Feminist author Kate Millett dies — VOA, 2017
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character.”
— Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934)
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