Buy used: $14.00

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Monday, January 8 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35

Arrives after Christmas. Need a gift sooner? Send an Amazon Gift Card instantly by email or text message.

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Wilbee Books

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Anaïs Nin

Follow

Incest: From a Journal of Love : The Unexpurgated Diary of Anias Nin, 1932-1934 Hardcover – January 1, 1992

by Anais Nin (Author)

4.3 77 ratings

See all formats and editions

Few writings explore a woman's love life in such detail, with such subtlety, insight, and pain, as does Anais Nin's original, uncensored diary. It is a life record that deals openly with the physical aspects of relationships and unsparingly with the full spectrum of psychological ramifications. Here was a woman who sought the freedom to act out her sexual and emotional desires with the same guiltless, "amoral" abandon that men have always claimed for themselves.
When Nin began publishing sections of her diary in 1966, this aspect of her life was excised, though clearly there was more than could be told at the time concerning her relationships with Henry Miller and his wife, June, with the writer and actor Antonin Artaud, with her analysts Rene Allendy and Otto Rank, and - most important - with her father. Here now is the previously missing portion of Nin's life in the crucial years from 1932 to 1934, the shattering psychological drama that drove her to seek absolution from her psychoanalysts for the ultimate transgression. In its raw exposure of a woman's struggle to come to terms with herself, to find salvation in the very act of writing, Incest unveils an Anais Nin without masks and secrets, yet in the end still mysterious, perhaps inexplicable.

Print length

418 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Texas Bookman
Publication date

January 1, 1992
Dimensions

9.57 x 6.43 x 1.38 inches
ISBN-10

0151443661
ISBN-13

978-0151443666
See all details

Anais Nin
604
Paperback
120 offers from $1.25
Anaïs Nin
60
Paperback
43 offers from $2.75
Anaïs Nin
71
Paperback
31 offers from $10.58
Anais Nin
316
Paperback
87 offers from $2.84
Anaïs Nin
54
Paperback
73 offers from $2.34
Anais Nin
143
Paperback
60 offers from $4.37

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Picking up where Henry and June (1986) left off, this portion of Nin's diary, which was cut from the expurgated editions published in her lifetime, records her steamy love affair with Henry Miller in Paris, but here her intense adoration gives way to disillusionment. She describes Miller as crude, egotistic, imitative, childishly irresponsible, "a madman." Her real focus, however, is her father, Joaquin Nin, a Spanish pianist and aristocratic Don Juan who seduced her after a 20-year absence. Her graphic account of their lovemaking and of her incestuous romantic feelings is fairly shocking. Nin sought absolution from her psychiatrist and lover, Otto Rank, who advised her to bed her father, then dump him as punishment for abandoning her when she was 10. Nin's ornate, hothouse prose is much rawer than the chiseled style of the expurgated diaries. She seethes with jealousy at Miller's wife June, swoons over poet and actor Antonin Artaud, neglects her protective husband, Hugh Guiler, and describes her traumatic delivery of a stillborn child. Her extraordinary, tangled self-analysis is a disarming record of her emotional and creative growth. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This second volume of the unexpurgated version of Nin's diary spans the period from October 1932 to November 1934. It draws upon previously unpublished material from the period covered by the first volume of the diary as published in 1966. Incest follows Henry & June ( LJ 10/1/86), focusing not only on Nin's continued relationship with author Henry Miller but also on her physical and emotional attachments to four other men. Nin offers intimate details of disturbing events such as her intense incestuous affair with her father and her abortion during her sixth month of pregnancy. Her diary offers direct insight into a narcissistic, passionate, analytical, and complex mind, but the brief introduction does disappointingly little to explain the editorial process that created this version of Nin's diary, which differs dramatically in style and content from its expurgated counterpart. Nevertheless, this is an important supplement to the 1966 diary and is recommended for most literature collections.
- Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT Lib.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Texas Bookman; First Edition (January 1, 1992)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 418 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0151443661
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0151443666
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.19 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.57 x 6.43 x 1.38 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,890,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9,118 in Author Biographies
- #18,214 in Women's Biographies

Customer Reviews:
4.3 77 ratings

Important information

To report an issue with this product or seller, click here.

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Anaïs Nin

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) was born in Paris and aspired at an early age to be a writer. An influential artist and thinker, she wrote primarily fiction until 1964, when her last novel, Collages, was published. She wrote The House of Incest, a prose-poem (1936), three novellas collected in The Winter of Artifice (1939), short stories collected in Under a Glass Bell (1944), and a five-volume continuous novel consisting of Ladders to Fire (1946), Children of the Albatross (1947), The Four-Chambered Heart (1950), A Spy in the House of Love (1954), and Seduction of the Minotaur (1961). These novels were collected as Cities of the Interior (1974). She gained commercial and critical success with the publication of the first volume of her diary (1966); to date, fifteen diary volumes have been published. Her most commercially successful books were her erotica published as Delta of Venus (1977) and Little Birds (1979). Today, her books are appearing digitally, most notably with the anthology The Portable Anais Nin (2011).

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

77 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

M. Brezae

Temporary Marriage of author and reader

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2019

Verified Purchase

The art of reading deeply requires a responsibility of the reader to bring one's skills, patience, and thus comprehension (yes, look up words or frame in time/era context, etc...) RATHER THAN expecting the writer to pour thoughts into one's head (which most artful writers are furiously --- or not --- attempting to perform, again, or not.
Especially as in the case of personal notes, diaries, musings...the reader must slow down and suspend harsh judgement, as the writer IMHO is either wrestling the ego, as most of us do, or baring one's soul for introspect revelation and sharing the jewels sometimes painfully acquired often in painful mental deep psych mining.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Andrea

From Sacrifice to Joy

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2020

Verified Purchase

A complex, complex woman who went though two analyses to become “a woman” after a lifetime of seeking to replace or conquer her father who abandoned her in childhood. Fascinating story of her
Relationship with the author Henry Miller and many major figures of her time. Her overflowing sexuality and her many, many loves make this fascinating reading. However this sensuality and her descriptions of her incestuous affair with her father make this a book I would only recommend to very open minded individuals. One wonders what writing Anais would have created if she was not pouring herself into supporting the art of men.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

David R. Ingham

Anais's famous diary at its rawest and best.

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2012

Verified Purchase

As a second edit of her diary, by her surviving second (bigamous) husband, this unexpurgated Journal of Love series consists mainly of the half of her like that could not be mentioned in public while she or her first husband were alive. This volume describes a period in her life dominated by her search for sexual gratification for itself and as material for her developing writing career, as well as by the diary itself. This is also a first hand account of an artistically central place and time.
(Her career was interrupted by World War II and the resulting trend toward nationalism in place of individual development and her work had to wait until the cultural renaissance of the 1960s to become popular.)

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Allan M. Lees

Perhaps the best of Nin's writing is here

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2006

In general I find Anais Nin's work to be self-indulgent and her subject matter (largely herself) trivial. Her portraits of others are frequently lightweight and lack perceptiveness. Her Diaries are overwrought and sometimes unintentionally funny but in general aren't worth the time it takes to read them. These previously unpublished sections of her Diaries, in which Nin describes her incestuous relationship with her father, are however the most compelling segments of her writing in the whole canon.

She describes with great insight her father's character, and she sketches his physical attributes with great economy yet enables us to see the man as she saw him - frail, a hopeless narcicist and an aging dandy, yet compelling and vital despite the betrayals of his body (and his betrayals of all those who ever got close to him). Her account of her own feelings is also economical for once, and we don't have to labor through over-written descriptions of her emotional condition in order to get to the point.

While the subject matter may not be to everyone's taste, I would argue that if you have any interest in Nin's work and times, this is the book above all others that you should read.

24 people found this helpful

Helpful

Adele Aldridge

Reading it again!

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

I read this book years ago when it was first published. Recently I read "Reunited" the letters from Anaïs to and from her father about their incest relationship. So I decided I wanted to re-read the other version. Obviously I am a big Anaïs Nin fan. If you are too then read the books.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

W. S. Ikard

Boring

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2021

Verified Purchase

I have heard about this writer for years. What a disappointment. This book is not remotely erotic or even interesting. It does not even work as a journal, with no detail and little description. Just say to yourself "Henry is god; June is mean", repeat ad infinitum, and you've got the book.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Latisha

The storyline is good. I couldn't quite follow the writting of it ...

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2016

Verified Purchase

Only put 4 stars, because I found a free audio version of the book online. The storyline is good. I couldn't quite follow the writting of it however. Due to the era in which it was written.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

R. Huntington

The most sexually explicit diaries ever penned.

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2015

Verified Purchase

Anais certainly lived life to the fullest. This is her most interesting work in my opinion, but there are still some publications I have not read. She is more explicit in her writings of sexual encounters than any other female author I have read. This is probably wrote the most explicit diaries ever penned by a woman. She was ahead of her time, and ours.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Courtney Ennis

Merveilleux

Reviewed in France on November 5, 2020

Verified Purchase

Une merveilleuse promenade dans le Paris des années trente, évoquant toute la symbolique d'une belle période littéraire. Pour les amateurs de Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, June et de cet univers, c'est un véritable régal !

Translate review to English

Mr. J.

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 26, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great price and arrived promptly

Ghislaine Roudil

journal intéressant mais un peu répétitif -

Reviewed in France on August 30, 2020

Verified Purchase