Does anyone know the works of Anais Nin?

I enjoy Nin a lot. I started with biographies of her life written by others; I found it gave me a good overall perspective of her diaries before I started to read them. It is a very different way of approaching those infamous diaries - to read a researched outsider's commentaries on them first, to understand how and why the diaries came into being, to understand her life when she was writing the diaries; I enjoyed learning about the real facts of the diaries before I read them. Perhaps you would too. Overall I prefer her erotic fiction, myself. She was such an interesting person - imagine, not seeing your father for years, and then going to have a torrid two-week affair with him in a hotel room! Crazy! She was wonderful - not particularly for the incest, but for being her own extraordinary, flawed, honest self.

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Does anyone know the works of Anais Nin?

I've recently developed an interest in her work --not her novels as much as her diaries. But there are so many! I suppose I should begin with her most earlier diaries, but does anyone else have any other ideas? If you know her work well, what would you recommend? Is there any one work I should...

She's a pretty fascinating person but I haven't read any of her novels or diaries. I have found some quotes from her and this is one of my favorites:

We don't see things as they are.

We see them as we are.

~Anais Nin~

I think it would be a good idea to start with her earliest diary. I keep a journal myself and can see how I've changed over the years. You would get a more personal look at her true persona. Cheers!

oh persiphony...I had forgotten about that quote...thanks for mentioning it here...I am there...in that bud...afraid...

Extremely beautiful and extremely erotic and very much based in the idea of the dominant submissive relationship. Anything you read will be beautiful.

I have a favorite Nin quote ...

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Reading Nin isnt just about enjoying, it's about experiencing in your soul. C.

check these links for Anais's books and bio:

http://www.todayinliterature.com/biography/anais.n...

The works of Anaïs Nin

Fiction

Anais Nin wrote a number of books that together form her continuous novel "Cities of the Interior", these novels explore the lives of Sabina, Jay, Djuna, and Lillian, with each novel concentrating on one of the characters. However, all of them can be read separately and in any order.

* Cities of the Interior

contents: Ladders to Fire, Children of the Albatross, The Four-Chambered Heart and Seduction of the Minotaur

o Chicago: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ Press 1974

609 p., ISBN 0-8040-0666-0

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* Ladders to Fire

read an excerpt

o Swallow Press 1995, Paperback

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o Peter Owen 2003, Paperback 128 pages (Peter Owen Modern Classics)

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This poetic, sensual novel focuses on the lives of a group of women as they undergo a period of emotional and sexual development. They record their experiences as they struggle to understand both themselves and each other.

* Children of the Albatross

o Denver : Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1959

174 p., ISBN 0-8040-0039-5

* The Four-Chambered Heart

o Chicago: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1959

187 p., ISBN 0-8040-0121-9, Paperback

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* Seduction of the Minotaur

o Denver: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1961

with an afterword by Wayne McEvilly, 146 p., ISBN 0-8040-0268-1

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* House of Incest

read many long excerpts and look at the wonderful photomontages by Val Telberg, you will love them

o Denver: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1958

photomontages by Val Telberg, 72 p., Paperback, ISBN 0-8040--148-0

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This one is Anais Nin's first work of fiction, she calls it a prose poem and the writing is very lyrical and poetic indeed.

* A Spy in the House of Love

read an excerpt

o Pocket Books 1994, Mass Market Paperback

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* Winter of Artifice

o Chicago: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1961

175 p., Paperback, ISBN 0-8040-0322-X

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* Collages

o Denver: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1964

Illustrated by Jean Varda, Paperback, 122 p., ISBN 0-8040-0045-X

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* Delta of Venus: Erotica.

o Pocket Books 1990, Mass Market Paperback

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These erotic short stories are amongst the finest erotic writing that I have come across, very sensual and beautiful. The stories were written for an anonymous collector in the 1940s. One of the most beautiful and intriguing stories is the rather long "The Basque and Bijou".

* Little Birds: Erotica

o New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich 1979

o Pocket Books 1990, Mass Market Paperback

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* Under a Glass Bell

Collected Short Stories. With Engravings by Ian Hugo.

o Ohio Univ Pr (Trd) 1995, Paperback, 101 p.

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These surrealistic stories first won Anais Nin public recognition through a review by E. Wilson.

* Waste of Timelessness, And Other Early Stories

o Chicago: Swallow Press 1994

Introduction by G. Stuhlmann, 118 p., Paperback, ISBN 0-8040-0981-3

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contents: Waste of timelessness. The song in the garden. The fear of Nice. The Gypsy feeling. The Russian who did not believe in miracles and why. The dance which could not be danced. A dangerous perfume. Red roses. Our minds are engaged. Alchemy. Tishnar. The idealist. The peacock feathers. Faithfulness. A spoiled party. A slippery floor.

I am mostly familiar with her diaries and highly recommend them. I would recommend that you begin at the beginning and read them in order. Delta of Venus and Henry and June seem to me somewhat autobiographical, so they may interest you as well.

It's quite good

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