Henry Miller Books In Order

Publication Order of The Rosy Crucifixion Books

Publication Order of Tropic Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Ultimate Disaster Survival Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Henry Miller
Henry Miller was born on December 26, 1891, at his family’s home in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, New York City (450 East 85th Street). He was the son of tailor Heinrich Miller and Louise Marie, who were Lutheran Germans.

During his childhood, he lived for 9 years at 662 Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which was known at that time (and was referred to frequently in his books) as the Fourteenth Ward. In 1900, his family moved to 1063 Decatur Street in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. After he finished elementary school, even though his family stayed in Bushwick, Henry went to Eastern District High School in Williamsburg.

When he was a young man, he was active with the Socialist Party of America, with his “quondam idol” being Hubert Harrison, a black Socialist. He went to City College of New York just for a semester.

In 1917 he married his first wife Beatrice Sylvas Wickens, with their divorce being granted in December of 1923. They had Barbara, a daughter born in 1919 together. They lived in an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. At the time, Miller was just working at Western Union, working there from 1920 until 1924 as a personnel manager in the messenger department.

He wrote his first novel, called “Clipped Wings”, while he was on a three week vacation. The novel was never published and just fragments of it still remain, even though parts of it got recycled in some later works, like “Tropic of Capricorn”.

In 1923, he met and became enamored of this mysterious dance hall ingenue that was born Juliet Edith Smerth however went by a stage name of June Mansfield, she was only 21 at the time. They started up an affair and got married in June of 1924. That same year, Miller quit his job at Western Union so that he could dedicate himself fully to his writing.

In his autobiographical trilogy, called “The Rosy Crucifixion”, he describes this period of time: his sexual escapades, his struggles in becoming a writer, his failures, his philosophy, and his friends.

Miller’s second novel “Moloch”, which was written in 1927-28, started under the guise of a novel that June herself wrote. There was this rich older admirer of June that paid her to write this novel; and she’d show him pages of what Miller had written, pretending that it was hers. The book was only published 12 years after Miller had died, and 65 years after it was originally written. It was based on Miller’s first marriage to Beatrice, and his years working at Western Union.

“Crazy Cook”, a third novel that was written around this time and also went unpublished until after he died.

He and June spent several months of 1928 in Paris. He met Robert W. Service, another author. In 1930, he would move to Paris unaccompanied. Shortly after he started working on “Tropic of Cancer”, telling a friend that he was starting on the Paris book. Uncensored, formless, and first person.

Even though he had little or zero money that first year in Paris, things started changing after he met Anai’s Nin who, along with Hugh Guiler, went on to pay his whole way through the 1930s including the rent for an apartment. Nin would also become his lover and financed the first printing of “Tropic of Cancer” with money from Otto Rank in 1934. Late that same year, June divorced Henry by proxy in Mexico City.

While working for the Chicago Tribune Paris edition as a proofreader, he was submitting some of his own articles under Alfred Perles’ name, who was a friend of Henry’s. This was because only the editorial staff were permitted to publish in the paper. This time in Paris was a very creative time for Miller, and it was during this time that he would also establish an influential and significant network of writers circulating around the Villa Seurat.

Henry became fluent in French during his 10 year long stay there, leaving in June of 1939.

In 1942, he’d move to California, first living just outside of Hollywood in Beverly Glen, before ultimately settling in Big Sur in 1944. As he was still establishing his base in Big Sur, the “Tropic” novels, were then still banned in America, but were getting published in France by the Obelisk Press and later by Olympia Press. These novels were acquiring a slow and steady notoriety among both Europeans and the various enclaves of American cultural exiles.

In 1944, he married Janina Martha Lepska, a philosophy student that was 30 years younger than him. They had two kids together: Tony (a son) and Valentine (a daughter). The couple would divorce in 1952.

The next year, he’d marry Eve McClure (an artist), who was 37 years his junior, and they divorced in 1960, and she died in 1966, most likely the result of alcoholism.

In 1961, he arranged this reunion with his second ex-wife and subject of “The Rosy Crucifixion” trilogy, June. They’d not seen one another in almost three decades. In a letter he wrote to Eve, he described his shock at June’s horrible appearance, since she had by that time denigrated both mentally and physically.

In February of 1963, he moved to Pacific Palisades, LA, where he’d spend the final 17 years of his life. In 1967, he married his fifth wife, Hoki Tokuda (a Japanese born singer).

Henry died at the age of 88 on June 7, 1980 from circulatory complications at his home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles.

“Tropic of Cancer” is the first novel in the “Tropic” series and was released in 1934. “Tropic of Cancer”, now hailed as an American classic and Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned for being obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934.

It was just a historic court ruling which changed American censorship standards, and ushering in a whole new era of frankness and freedom in modern literature. Which was permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller’s famed mixture of fiction and memoir. The novel is the chronicling with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of one young expatriate author, his buddies, and all of the characters that they meet in the 1930s while in Paris.