$4.99 Under a Glass Bell was self-published by Anaïs Nin in 1944, using a manual press. This collection of thirteen short stories, beautifully crafted in a style influenced by French surrealism, but uniquely Nin’s, brought her national attention when Edmund Wilson of The New Yorker reviewed it. Considered one of Nin’s most successful works of fiction, the tales attain psychological realism through illusory symbolism. Among the titles are “Houseboat,” “The Mouse,” “Ragtime,” “The Labyrinth,” and “Birth.” Under a Glass Bell is a celebration of the passionate language of Anaïs Nin. Click to View on Amazon

$4.99 Originally published in book form in 1954, A Spy in the House of Love contains some of Anais Nin's best poetic prose. The main character, Sabina, realizes that she is a composite of many selves, each one seeking identity within relationships with five very different men, and while she seeks to live out each part of herself, she also craves unity, setting the stage for the battle for self-awareness. Part realism and part fantasy, A Spy in the House of Love achieves a level of writing that is very rare in the English language. Click to View on Amazon

$3.99 “House of Incest is a strange and challenging work that demands the full attention of the reader. It is not so much a story of people (although it certainly is that) as it is a visit into the hellish nightmare of the narrator's experience from which she emerges satisfactorily. But, however one approaches the work, House of Incest is Nin’s best work of fiction and one that contains most of her basic themes, images and patterns that she would use in her later work.”—Benjamin Franklin and Duane Schneider. Click to View on Amazon

$4.99 Ladders to Fire, Anaïs Nin’s first full-length novel, was revolutionary in that it addressed woman’s role in a male-dominated world in the mid-1940s. Through her iconic characters Lillian, Djuna, and Sabina, and their relationship with Jay, Nin was able to examine “the destruction in woman…woman’s struggle to understand her own nature.” Click to View on Amazon

$2.99 Stella, a little-known work written by Anais Nin in 1945, is an examination of self-discovery and self-worth, a theme central to much of her fiction. The title character is loosely based on actress Luise Rainer, with whom Nin had a contentious friendship. Stella is faced with the contrast between her love affair with a public that adores her for her film roles, and her personal inability to find human love. The men in Stella’s life include an ex-husband, a Don Juan lover, and a father who is not unlike Nin’s own. Click to View on Amazon

$4.99 Children of the Albatross is considered by many to be one of Anaïs Nin’s most beautiful books; it is also a groundbreaker in that it eloquently addresses androgyny and homosexuality, which few literary works dared to do in 1940s America. We are introduced to three of Nin’s most significant characters: Djuna, Lillian, and Sabina, all of whom represent different aspects of Nin’s character—serenity, earthiness, and the femme fatale, respectively. Click to View on Amazon

$4.99 The Four-Chambered Heart, Anais Nin's third title in the Cities of the Interior series of novels, is one of Nin's most compelling books, with well-defined characters (Djuna, Rango, and Zora), rhythmic waves of tension, and a powerful climax. Based on Nin's own relationship with the Peruvian radical Gonzalo More and his wife Helba, The Four-Chambered Heart examines how each of us experiences love in our own way, and how we are sometimes forced by social mores to compartmentalize one relationship in order to preserve the other. Nin's use of symbolism has never been more effective: the river Seine represents the immutable force of life, the houseboat is the elusive dream, the shore is reality, and a doll found by a fisherman represents the part of Djuna that has committed suicide to allow the rest of her to grow. Click to View on Amazon

Seduction of the Minotaur is an example of Anaïs Nin’s most mature and cohesive fiction. The central character, Lillian, arrives in an exotically primitive Mexico from New York, in part to forget her crumbling marriage and to find flow in her life after years of stasis. She befriends Dr. Hernandez, who, like Lillian, is also trying to forget, to escape, which he does with violence, shocking Lillian into facing her inner demon, the “Minotaur.” Critic Oliver Evans says of Seduction of the Minotaur: “Its symbolism is the most complicated of any of Miss Nin’s longer works…and at the same time it makes more concessions…to the tradition of the realistic novel: the result is a work of unusual richness.” Click to View on Amazon

$4.99 Collages is Anaïs Nin’s last work of fiction, and is, as the title suggests, a collection of interwoven stories, opening and closing with the passage: “Vienna was the city of statues. They were as numerous as the people who walked the streets. They stood on the top of the highest towers, lay down on stone tombs, sat on horseback, kneeled, prayed, fought animals and wars, danced, drank wine and read books made of stone.” Collages is Nin’s most light-hearted writing, and, in that sense, is perhaps her most entertaining book. As Henry Miller commented, “The best of collages fall apart with time; these will not.” Click to View on Amazon

D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study

Anais Nin's first book, published in 1932 by Edward Titus in Paris, was a critical examination of the work of controversial British Author D. H. Lawrence. Of all the books written about Lawrence, his widow Frieda said this one "was the best." Nin was inspired to do the book after Lawrence had been villified by puritanical critics, but only had a pile of notes when she mentioned it to Titus. Titus asked to see something quickly, and in 13 days, Nin turned her notes into a cohesive and insightful study. In it, she declared: "Reading Lawrence should be a pursuit of his intuitions to the limit of their possibilities, a penetration of his world through which we are to make a prodigious voyage. It is going to be a prodigious voyage because he surrenders fully to experience, lets it flow through him, and because he had that quality of genius which sucks out of ordinary experience essences strange or unknown to men." Nin's study remains the most informative and deepest guide to Lawrence today. Click to View on Amazon

$4.99 Out of print since 1939, Anais Nin's second work of fiction is republished for the first time in any language. The book consists of three stories: "Djuna," which, because of censorship, was eliminated entirely from subsequent editions of this title, is Nin's first treatment of the Anais Nin-Henry Miller-June Miller triangle, made famous in the unexpurgated diary entitled 'Henry and June,' which came out in 1986. The second novella, "Lilith," is the symbolic rendering of Nin's incestuous affair with her father, Joaquin Nin. "The Voice," the final novella, describes Nin's relationship with a combined character representing her analysts Otto Rank and Rene Allendy, both of whom had sexual relations with her. The Winter of Artifice is a groundbreaking piece of literature, foraying into realms previously untouched by women writers, and after a long absence, is finally available to readers in the USA and UK for the very first time since its publication in France in 1939. Click to View on Amazon

$3.99 The inaugral issue of A Cafe in Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal, published during Nin's centennial year, 2003. Articles include an excerpt from Nin's unpublished 1940s diary, Janet Fitch's recollections of how her writing was influenced by Nin, Lynette Felber's examination of the contentious friendship between Nin and Rebecca West, an interview with Joaquin Nin-Culmell, and a visit to Nin's home in Louveciennes on her 100th birthday. Poetry, reviews, and photographs are included. Click to View on Amazon

$3.99 Included in this issue is a 22 page excerpt from Nin's unexpurgated 1940s diary, entitled "Dances of Love and Desire," an intimate look at Nin's relationship with her Haitian friends and lovers in New York City. Also included are essays and articles by Masako Meio, Beatrice Commenge, Karl Orend, Javant Biarujia, Jacques Lay, Jean-Yves Boulic, Yoshiho Satake, R.G. Kainer, Tristine Rainer, Benjamin Franklin V, Karin Finell, along with an excerpt from Maria Chekhov's memoirs, and poetry by Thomas March and Morton Traub. With reviews and summaries of current books and other media. Click to View on Amazon

$3.99 Volume 6 (2009) of the only current journal dedicated to the life and work of Anais Nin. Contains recently discovered letters between Nin and her father leading up to and during the time they became sexually involved with each other, shedding new light on how the relationship developed into adult-onset incest. Essays on Nin, Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, feminism, and erotica, as well as reviews on recent Nin-related events. Click to View on Amazon

$3.99 Volume 7 (2010) features an excerpt from Nin's unpublished 1940s diary, letters and excerpts from Hugh Guiler's diary expounding his views on his crumbling marriage with Nin, essays on feminist theory, Nin's erotica, and an interview with Nin biographer Deirdre Bair. Click to View on Amazon

A Cafe in Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal, Volume 8

by Anais Nin, Kim Krizan, Barbara Kraft, Anita Jarczok, Joel Enos et al.

$3.99. This volume contains striking letters between Nin and Hugh Guiler shortly before her death, and between Rupert Pole and Guiler shortly after her death. Also included are articles by scholars from around the world regarding Nin, her writing and sense of fashion, filmmaker Maya Deren, the movie Henry and June, as well as a look at Nin's "father-in-law," Reginald Pole, the renowned Shakespearean actor.An excerpt from Barbara Kraft's memoir Anais Nin: The Last Days gives us a look at Nin's final illness as told by an intimate friend. Click to view on Amazon