Henry Miller facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Henry Miller
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Miller in 1940
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| Born | Henry Valentine Miller December 26, 1891 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | June 7, 1980 (aged 88) Los Angeles, California U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1934–80 |
| Genre | Roman à clef, philosophical fiction |
| Notable works | Tropic of Cancer Black Spring Tropic of Capricorn The Colossus of Maroussi The Rosy Crucifixion |
| Spouse |
Beatrice Sylvas Wickens
(m. 1917; div. 1924)June Miller
(m. 1924; div. 1934)Janina Martha Lepska
(m. 1944; div. 1952)Eve McClure
(m. 1953; div. 1960)Hiroko Tokuda
(m. 1967; div. 1977) |
| Children | 3 |
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Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. His most famous works are Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, Tropic of Capricorn, and the trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion. He also wrote travel memoirs and literary criticism, and painted watercolors.
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Early life
Miller was born at his family's home, 450 East 85th Street, in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, New York City. He was the son of Lutheran German parents, Louise Marie (Neiting) and tailor Heinrich Miller. As a child, he lived for nine years at 662 Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, known at that time (and referred to frequently in his works) as the Fourteenth Ward. In 1900, his family moved to 1063 Decatur Street in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. After finishing elementary school, although his family remained in Bushwick, Miller attended Eastern District High School in Williamsburg. As a young man, he was active with the Socialist Party of America (his "quondam idol" was the black Socialist Hubert Harrison). He attended the City College of New York for one semester.
Career
Brooklyn, 1917–1930
Miller wrote his first novel, Clipped Wings in March 1922, during a three-week vacation. It has never been published, and only fragments remain, although parts of it were recycled in other works, such as Tropic of Capricorn. In 1924 Miller quit Western Union in order to dedicate himself completely to writing.
Miller's second novel, Moloch: or, This Gentile World, was written in 1927–28, initially under the guise of a novel written by his wife Juliet (June). A rich older admirer of June, Roland Freedman, paid her to write the novel; she would show him pages of Miller's work each week, pretending it was hers. The book went unpublished until 1992, 65 years after it was written and 12 years after Miller's death. A third novel written around this time, Crazy Cock, also went unpublished until after Miller's death.
Paris, 1930–1939
In 1930, Miller moved to Paris. Soon after, he began work on Tropic of Cancer. Although Miller had little or no money the first year in Paris, things began to change after meeting Anaïs Nin who, with Hugh Guiler, went on to pay his entire way through the 1930s including the rent for an apartment at 18 Villa Seurat. Nin became his lover and financed the first printing of Tropic of Cancer in 1934.
In 1931, Miller was employed by the Chicago Tribune Paris edition as a proofreader, thanks to his friend Alfred Perlès, who worked there. Miller took this opportunity to submit some of his own articles under Perlès' name, since at that time only the editorial staff were permitted to publish in the paper. This period in Paris was highly creative for Miller, and during this time he also established a significant and influential network of authors circulating around the Villa Seurat. At that time a young British author, Lawrence Durrell, became a lifelong friend. During his Paris period he was also influenced by the French Surrealists.
Miller became fluent in French during his ten-year stay in Paris and lived in France until June 1939.
California, 1942–1980
In 1940, Miller returned to the United States. In 1942, shortly before moving to California, Miller began writing Sexus, the first novel in The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, a fictionalized account documenting the six-year period of his life in Brooklyn falling in love with June and struggling to become a writer. Like several of his other works, the trilogy, completed in 1959, was initially banned in the United States, published only in France and Japan.
Miller lived in a small house on Partington Ridge from 1944 to 1947, along with other bohemian writers like Harry Partch, Emil White, and Jean Varda. While living there, he wrote "Into the Nightlife".
In other works written during his time in California, Miller was widely critical of consumerism in America, as reflected in Sunday After the War (1944) and The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945). His Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, published in 1957, is a collection of stories about his life and friends in Big Sur.
Personal life
Miller was married five times. His fifth wife was Japanese born singer Hoki Tokuda. The couple divorced in 1977.
In February 1963, Miller moved to 444 Ocampo Drive, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California, where he would spend the last 17 years of his life.
Death
Miller died of circulatory complications at his home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, on June 7, 1980, at the age of 88.
Watercolors
In addition to his literary abilities, Miller produced numerous watercolor paintings and wrote books on this field. He was a close friend of the French painter Grégoire Michonze. It is estimated that Miller painted 2,000 watercolors during his life, and that 50 or more major collections of Miller's paintings exist. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds a selection of Miller's watercolors, as did the Henry Miller Museum of Art in Ōmachi City in Nagano, Japan, before closing in 2001. Miller's daughter Valentine placed some of her father's art for sale in 2005. He was also an amateur pianist.
See also
In Spanish: Henry Miller para niños
