Tropic of Capricorn

Plot

Tropic of Capricorn is a semi-autobiographical novel by Henry Miller, first published in Paris in 1938. The novel was banned in the United States until a 1961 Justice Department ruling declared that its contents were not obscene. It was also banned in Turkey. It is a prequel to Miller's 1934 work, the Tropic of Cancer.

The novel is set in 1920s New York, where the narrator 'Henry V. Miller' works in the personnel division of the 'Cosmodemonic' telegraph company. Although the narrator's experiences closely parallel Miller's own time in New York working for the Western Union Telegraph Company, and though he shares the author's name, the novel is considered a work of fiction.

Much of the story surrounds his New York years of struggle with his first wife Beatrice, before meeting, and eventually marrying, June (aka Mara). The first volume of his Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, Sexus, begins where he leaves off and describes the process of finding his voice as a writer, until eventually, at the end of the last volume, Nexus, he sets off for Paris (described in Tropic of Cancer, which was actually written first).