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In March 1970 Columbia University awarded Kate Millett a doctorate with distinction for a dissertation that took apart D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer. Published that year as Sexual Politics, it sold 80,000 copies in its first year, and on 31 August 1970 her portrait, painted by Alice Neel, was on the cover of Time. She spent the next three decades writing about what that fame cost her: her lovers, her family, her years in psychiatric wards, a murdered girl in Indianapolis and her own detention in Iran. This guide covers her ten key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 1970–2001 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Kate Millett’s best-known book is Sexual Politics (1970), one of the founding texts of second-wave feminism. Her other key books are the memoirs Flying (1974), Sita (1977), The Loony-Bin Trip (1990), A.D. (1995) and Mother Millett (2001), and The Basement (1979), about the murder of Sylvia Likens. Start with Sexual Politics; the memoirs show the life it led to.
Where to Start with Kate Millett
If you want the book that made her name
→ Sexual Politics (1970) — the feminist classic that began as her Columbia dissertation.
If you want the memoir of sudden fame
→ Flying (1974) — her life in the years after Sexual Politics.
If you want her account of psychiatric commitment
→ The Loony-Bin Trip (1990).
If you want her book about a crime
→ The Basement (1979) — the 1965 murder of Sylvia Likens.
10 Kate Millett Books, in Order
Sexual Politics
Based on her Columbia doctoral dissertation, the book argues that the relation between the sexes is political, a system of power she calls patriarchy, and traces it through law, religion, psychology and literature. Its best-known chapters read D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer as writers of male dominance and set Jean Genet against them. Published by Doubleday, it sold 80,000 copies in its first year; Mailer answered it in The Prisoner of Sex (1971).
The Prostitution Papers
Her second book, published by Basic Books, is built from conversations with women who worked as prostitutes, set out as a dialogue in which their voices sit alongside Millett’s own. It applies the argument of Sexual Politics to the sale of sex, letting the women describe it themselves.
Flying
Written as a long journal, Flying follows Millett through the years after Sexual Politics made her famous: the interviews and attacks, the movement politics, her marriage to the sculptor Fumio Yoshimura and her relationships with women. It was published by Knopf and is the first of her autobiographical books.
Sita
A diary of the end of her love affair with a woman she calls Sita, kept as the relationship falls apart. Sita later died by suicide, and Millett wrote a new introduction for the 1992 edition. It is one of the books in which her lesbianism is the central subject.
The Basement
Millett’s book about the 1965 torture and murder of Sylvia Likens, a 16-year-old girl left in the care of a woman in Indianapolis, who abused her with the help of her own children and boys from the neighbourhood. Millett tells it from the viewpoints of both the victim and her killers, and reads the case as an extreme version of the subjugation of girls.
Going to Iran
An account of her trip to Tehran in March 1979, weeks after the revolution, with her partner Sophie Keir, to support Iranian women protesting against the new regime. About two weeks after arriving they were taken from their hotel, held overnight at immigration headquarters and put on a plane to Paris.
The Loony-Bin Trip
Millett, diagnosed with manic depression, describes coming off lithium at her farm in 1980, the alarm of friends and family, and her involuntary commitment in Ireland that year. It is both a memoir and a case against forced psychiatric treatment; Karen Malpede called it “harrowing, hallucinatory, heroic”.
The Politics of Cruelty
A study of torture as state policy in the 20th century, read through the writing of prisoners and survivors, with the Spanish Inquisition as a point of reference. Millett argues that torture is official practice in nearly half the world’s nations.
A.D.
A memoir of her wealthy aunt Dorothy in St. Paul, whom Millett called “Anno Domina”. In the late 1950s Dorothy paid for her studies at Oxford on condition that she give up her female lover; Millett took the woman with her, and when Dorothy found out she never forgave her. The book is about money, family and the closet in the 1950s and 1960s.
Mother Millett
Millett’s account of trying to free her elderly mother, Helen, from a nursing home in St. Paul, Minnesota, and to care for her herself — the same mother who had once signed papers to have Kate committed. Published by Verso, it was named one of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2001.
In What Order to Read Kate Millett
Read Sexual Politics first: everything after it is in some way about its consequences. After that, publication order works well for the memoirs, because Flying, Sita, The Loony-Bin Trip, A.D. and Mother Millett together form one long autobiography, though not told chronologically.
The three books of reporting and argument, The Basement, Going to Iran and The Politics of Cruelty, stand on their own and can be read in any order. A.D. goes back furthest in time, to her years at Oxford in the 1950s.
A reading path
1. Sexual Politics (1970)
2. Flying (1974)
3. The Loony-Bin Trip (1990)
4. The Basement (1979)
5. Mother Millett (2001)
Everything Else Kate Millett Published
Beyond the 10 key books: 2 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Reports and catalogues
2
2 books · 1967–1997
- 1967Token Learninga report for the National Organization for Women on the education of women at American colleges, which she edited
- 1997Kate Millett, Sculptor: The First Thirty-Eight Yearsan exhibition catalogue of her sculpture
The years · 1934–2017
Quick facts about Kate Millett
- Known for
- Writing Sexual Politics (1970), one of the first books to describe patriarchy as a system of power running through all of society, and later memoirs about fame, love between women and forced psychiatric treatment.
- 1934
- Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota
- 1958
- First-class degree from St Hilda’s College, Oxford
- 1970
- Sexual Politics
- 1979
- Taken from her hotel in Tehran and flown out of Iran
- 2017
- Dies in Paris, aged 82
- Born
- 14 September 1934, Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an Irish Catholic family
- Education
- University of Minnesota (1956); St Hilda’s College, Oxford (1958); PhD, Columbia University (1970)
- Also
- Sculptor and painter; made the documentary Three Lives (1971) with an all-woman crew
- Married
- The sculptor Fumio Yoshimura (1965–1985); later the journalist Sophie Keir, her partner of 39 years
- Founded
- The Women’s Art Colony and Tree Farm near Poughkeepsie, New York, from 1971
- Honours
- Lambda Pioneer Award; National Women’s Hall of Fame (2013)
- Died
- 6 September 2017, Paris, of cardiac arrest
The red mark is 1970: Sexual Politics, the book that put her on the cover of Time.
How Kate Millett Writes: Theory, Then the Self
Sexual Politics is a work of literary criticism with a political argument: it reads novels closely, quoting their sex scenes at length, to show how they stage male power, then widens the case to law, religion and psychology. It was written as a doctoral dissertation, and Millett herself later disliked its “mandarin mid-Atlantic” prose.
After it she changed almost completely. Flying, Sita and The Loony-Bin Trip are written close to the moment, in long, loose, associative sentences, with her own feelings, failures and quarrels left in. She turned the idea that the personal is political into a method: her love affairs, her family’s money and her commitments to psychiatric wards are treated as evidence about power.
Her reporting books keep the same first-person stance. In The Basement she imagines her way into the minds of a murdered girl and her abusers, and in Going to Iran she is a participant, not an observer. For the critics she took on, see Norman Mailer and Henry Miller.
Frequently asked questions about Kate Millett’s books
How many books has Kate Millett written?
Ten books of her own are the key books on this page, from Sexual Politics (1970) to Mother Millett (2001). She also edited the report Token Learning (1967) for the National Organization for Women and published a catalogue of her sculpture in 1997.
What are Kate Millett’s books in order?
Sexual Politics (1970), The Prostitution Papers (1971), Flying (1974), Sita (1977), The Basement (1979), Going to Iran (1982), The Loony-Bin Trip (1990), The Politics of Cruelty (1994), A.D. (1995) and Mother Millett (2001).
Where should I start with Kate Millett?
With Sexual Politics (1970), the book everything else follows from. If you would rather start with her life than her theory, read Flying (1974).
What is Kate Millett’s most famous book?
Sexual Politics (1970), based on her Columbia dissertation. It sold 80,000 copies in its first year, put her on the cover of Time on 31 August 1970, and is still taught in gender and cultural studies.
What is Sexual Politics about?
It argues that the relationship between men and women is a political one, a system of dominance she calls patriarchy, maintained through family, law, religion, psychology and culture. Its literary chapters criticise D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer and contrast them with Jean Genet.
Why was Kate Millett controversial?
In 1970 Time first made her the face of women’s liberation, then in a December article reported that she had said she was bisexual, which critics used against her and the movement. Norman Mailer attacked Sexual Politics in The Prisoner of Sex (1971), and Camille Paglia later called her scholarship deeply flawed.
Was Kate Millett committed to a psychiatric hospital?
Yes, more than once. Her family had her committed in the United States in the 1970s, and in 1980, after she stopped taking lithium, she was involuntarily committed in Ireland. She wrote about this in The Loony-Bin Trip (1990) and campaigned against forced psychiatric treatment.
What happened to Kate Millett in Iran?
In March 1979 she went to Tehran with Sophie Keir to support Iranian women protesting against the new regime. About two weeks later they were taken from their hotel, held overnight at immigration headquarters and put on a plane to Paris. She told the story in Going to Iran (1982).
Is Kate Millett still alive?
No. She died of cardiac arrest in Paris on 6 September 2017, eight days before her 83rd birthday, with her wife Sophie Keir beside her.
Was Kate Millett married?
Yes. She married the Japanese sculptor Fumio Yoshimura in 1965; they divorced in 1985. Near the end of her life she married Sophie Keir, a journalist and photographer who had been her partner for 39 years.
Footnotes
- Kate Millett — Wikipedia
- Kate Millett, feminist activist and author, 82 — Khaosod English (AP), 2017
- Feminist Millett dies — VOA, 2017
- Millett, Kate 1934– — Contemporary Authors, Encyclopedia.com
- A.D., a Memoir — Publishers Weekly
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.
“Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different.”
— Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (1970)
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