House of Incest

Anais Nin’s famous prose poem and first fictional book, House of Incest, appeared in 1936, published in a limited edition by Siana (Anais spelled backwards) Editions in Paris. Often compared to the style of the French Surrealists, it ranks among the most unique representations of English prose in the 20th century, free-flowing, evoking dreamlike images that weave in and around the passages. Among the hallucinatory words, heavily symbolic images come into focus: the fabled house in Louveciennes, France; the erotic liaison with June Miller; the god-like mentor, D.H. Lawrence; and impossible incestuous love—all fragments of a nebulous being slowly coalescing into an elevated state of existence.