Miller, Henry.

8vo, first edition, one of 1,000 copies, presentation copy inscribed by the author two months after publication ("To Guy Hickok | who so generously | opened his arms to | me when I arrived | like a beggar in Paris | Sincerely | Henry V. Miller | Paris 11/5/3 | 4"), author's address in black ink on same page ("18 Villa Seurat | Paris | XIV"), the reporter and writer Wambly Bald's copy with his ownership signature and two New York addresses on front endpaper, notes on half title relating to Cinema Spendide and Place Nortier, previous pencil signature on same page, rebound in brown morocco, covers nearly detached, spine defective with remains of backstrip detached, front endpaper detached, covers very worn, some browning to text, endpapers stained

Guy Hickok, presentation inscription by the author; "H. McMahon", pencil ownership signature; Wambly Bald, ownership signature; presented to current owner in 1989

Pearson A-32

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
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"...Nothing I had yet received was comparable to it for the splendour of its writing, the fathomless depth of its desire, the savour of its portraiture, the boisterousness of its humour..."  
(the publisherJack Kahane, on first reading the manuscript of Tropic of Cancer, from his Memoirs, quoted by Pearson, p.435)

An important presentation and association copy of Miller's account of his experiences of his first year in Paris, living as a struggling vagabond. Miller had delivered the typescript of the work to his literary agent William Bradley in 1932; it was published by Jack Kahane of the Obelisk Press two years later in September 1934, when Miller returned to his Villa Meurat adress, where he had begun writing the novel four years earlier. The reporter and writer Wambly Bald, who is the model for the character Van Norden in Tropic of Cancer, spent several years travelling and writing in America before moving to Paris in 1929, where he became a good friend of Miller's and captured the essence of Paris bohemian life in a series of articles for the European edition of The Chicago Tribune (Miller himself is thought to have occasionally written some of these pieces for him). His book On the Left Bank 1929-1933, edited by Benjamin Franklin V, was published in 1987.