TROPIC OF CANCER
New York: Medvsa/Medusa, 1940. First Paperback Edition, Variant Binding. Octavo, 322 pages. In Very Good minus condition. Bound in purple paper wraps with plain spine faded to beige. Wrinkling to spine, uneven sunning to covers. Text block shows moderate age toning to edges and light age toning to pages generally, increasing to moderate age toning at top edge. Shelved in Case 2.
1313761
Shelved Dupont Bookstore
Price: $320
NOTES
"Up to the present, my idea of collaborating with myself has been to get off the gold standard of literature. My idea briefly has been to present a resurrection of the emotions, to depict the conduct of a human being in the stratosphere of ideas, that is, in the grip of delirium." (Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer). Miller's entire body of work may well be characterized by the concept of "self-collaboration" -- breaking out of long-held literary molds to become reacquainted with his own self and experience. He highlighted this autobiographical or confessional shift by the inclusion of a quote from Emerson prefacing the 1961 Grove Press edition of Tropic of Cancer: "These novels will give way, by and by, to diaries or autobiographies—captivating books, if only a man knew how to choose among what he calls his experiences that which is really his experience, and how to record truth truly." Known largely for the charges of obscenity leveled against it, and its nearly three-decade censorship in the United States, Tropic of Cancer is now recognized as something much more: an uncompromising attempt at self-revelation, and the pursuit of a prose style up to the task.
This is the first American edition, privately printed in this pirated version of 1000 copies by Jacob Brussel under the fictitious imprint of 'New York / Medusa.' An overrun of 200 to 500 unbound sheets were printed for later distribution, accounting for the nine variants which followed this first issue. The First Paperback Edition, also the Seventh Medusa Variant. Printed in Mexico, it precedes the authorized (Grove Press, 1961) American edition by more than two decades. References: Shifreen & Jackson A9Q