Books

First edition, first printing, first issue, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper prior to publication, "To Audrey Beecham, from her well wisher, Henry Miller, 1/5/39". Copies are rare inscribed. Beecham was a "poet and eccentric" (ODNB), and a descendant of Thomas Beecham, founder of the eponymous pharmaceuticals empire. Miller published several of her poems while editor at Delta magazine. She once took an extended holiday from her Oxford studies to run guns for the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, and when she graduated in 1937, she moved to Paris, where she befriended Miller, Anaïs Nin, and Lawrence Durrell. In the 1940s, she spent much of her time in London, where she garnered a serious poetic reputation, and befriended Joe Ackerley and Dylan Thomas: "she prided herself on her mastery of martial arts and on her claim to have knocked out Dylan Thomas cold when he made unwelcome advances to her" (ibid.) To the surprise of her contemporaries, she applied for and was appointed the warden of Nightingale Hall, the women's residence at the University of Nottingham, in 1950. Lord David Cecil remarked on her unexpected appointment, "There's no martinet like a reformed rake" (ibid.) Pearson notes that publication of Tropic of Capricorn was initially scheduled for February 1939 but was delayed until 10 May 1939, "as a result of which few copies were sold before the beginning of the war, the death of Kahane, and the shutting down of the Obelisk Press". It was banned in America until the landmark 1961 obscenity trial that saw Tropic of Cancer declared non-obscene, a watershed moment in 20th-century publishing that was instrumental in ushering in the liberal social mores of the Sixties. This is a first issue copy, with the price of 60 francs printed on the spine and the errata slip present on the title page. Pearson A60; Porter, p. 12. Octavo. Original buff wrappers with flaps, spine lettered in red, front lettered in black on red ground with astrological motifs in buff, edges untrimmed. Housed in a custom red cloth flat-backed box. With yellow errata slip tipped-in on title page as issued. Spine ends and upper corner of rear flap chipped, wrappers creased but very bright, nicked with a few short closed tears, rear wrapper toned and soiled, occasional marks to endmatter. A very good copy.

'Tropic of Capricorn' is a semi-autobiographical novel by Henry Miller, delving into the life of the narrator prior to events in 'Tropic of Cancer'. It combines personal narrative with philosophical musings and social criticism.