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Ladders To Fire Paperback – January 1, 1959

by Anaïs Nin (Author)

3.9 34 ratings

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After struggling with her own press and printing her own works, Anaïs Nin succeeded in getting Ladders to Fire accepted and published in 1946. This recognition marked a milestone in her life and career. Admitted into the fellowship of American novelists, she maintained the individuality of her literary style. She resisted realistic writing and drew on the experience and intuitions of her diary to forge a novelistic style emphasizing free association, the language of emotion, spontaneity, and improvisation.

Ladders to Fire is the first volume of Nin’s celebrated series of novels called Cities of the Interior

For Anaïs Nin, her writing and her life were not separable, they were both part of the same experience. She claimed that “is it the fiction writer who edited the diary.”

Anaïs Nin continues to find an audience, whether for her fiction, her diaries, or her own life story, which has enjoyed the attention of biographers and filmmakers. This 1995 reissue of Ladders to Fire has a new cover and foreword.

Print length

152 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Swallow Press
Publication date

January 1, 1959
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0804001812
ISBN-13

978-0804001816
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“I have to begin where everything begins, in the blindness and in the shaddows. I have to begin the story of women's development where all things begin; in nature, at the roots. It is necessary to return to the origin of confusion which is woman's struggle to understand her own nature.”—from the prologue (first edition)

“My original concept was a Roman Fleuve, a series of novels on various aspects of relationships, portraying four women in a continuous symphony of experience. All the characters are presented fully in the first volume, Ladders to Fire. Th

About the Author

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) is an iconic literary figure and one of the most notable experimental writers of the twentieth century. As one of the first women to explore female erotica, Nin revealed the inner desires of her characters in a way that made her works a touchstone for later feminist writers. Swallow Press is the premier US publisher of books by and about Nin.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Swallow Press; First Edition (January 1, 1959)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 152 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0804001812
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0804001816
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.01 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,683,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,936 in American Fiction Anthologies
- #35,898 in Psychological Thrillers (Books)
- #162,200 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 34 ratings

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Gunther Stuhlmann
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Anaïs Nin
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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).
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3.9 out of 5

34 global ratings

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Nicole and Gail Kelley

Nin at her best

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2010

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I have to say that I only started reading Anais Nin because of Henry Miller, but that probably can be said for most. After reading "Tropic of Cancer" about ten years ago I had to read Miller's muse, so I picked up Nin's "Delta of Venus" in a used book store and devoured it. This year after visiting the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, CA. I read "Tropic of Capricorn" and had to keep up the tradition by reading this book. With that said... Nin is amazingly poetic in her verse and it makes me want to lock myself in the house and read the rest of the books in this "continuous novel". Every character leaps from the page and I feel like I have known their counterparts at one point in my life. Nin made each character a shattered part of herself or a part she wanted her self to be! Here style made me more and more introspective with the addition of each new character. I can not wait to read more!

4 people found this helpful

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Jim Morris

What do women want?

Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2012

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Having gone through Anais Nin's diaries several times I'm now into the novels. They have the same brilliant prose, but, being more contrived they are not as satisfying. They are, however, a good read and worth the time and effort.
What's fun for me in these novels is to see how she takes characteristics of herself and people she knows to construct her fictional characters. In essense these are games of mix and match with people one already knows, coupled with long philosophical disquisitions on their characters and problems. Truly Nin created a brilliant volume of work in her lifetime. And for a guy they go a long way toward answering Freud's question, "What do women want?"

2 people found this helpful

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StevieGee1945

An intriguing journey with Anais Nin

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2016

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I enjoyed the 5-part series a lot. Read it slowly. Take it in.

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2013

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I had high hopes for this book. I was very disappointed. I loathed Jay. He is lazy and selfish. I found it difficult to believe so many women wanted him. The opening descriptions of Lillian conveyed (to me) a vitality and presence. As the book goes on, it becomes evident she possesses neither. Lillian: "when will he hurt me? And what if he does: I will try to love him gaily, more easily and loosely".

I always felt like the author was trying to say something without actually saying it. The book had no flow.

There was however a great line in the book: When my husband said "Lillian, let's be reasonable", it meant he had none of the feeling I had!

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2020

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Bought this for myself as a birthday present. Came quickly and in great condition. Loved the book and the service. It was a first edition so I think I’ll keep it forever :)

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Dermot Mccabe

The author really works at describing with great precision the inner feelings and emotions of the main ...

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2018

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I found this heavy going. The author really works at describing with great precision the inner feelings and emotions of the main characters. This is a book almost entirely using tell rather than show. Rather than trust the reader with telling cues from which they can determine the state of mind of the characters they are pummeled with the authors determination to convey every nuance by using her considerable talent with words. Ultimately I found this tedious and boring.

One person found this helpful

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R J Brodie

Historical insight

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2017

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her words are like fine water colors on silk

Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2014

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if you've never read Anais Nin, start here. start now.
her words are like fine water colors on silk, twisted around into words, free only to be seen again with in your minds eye. She put words to feelings and emotions I did not know could be described, or that they ever existed at all beyond the inside's of my own chest.
just buy this book. you won't be disappointed.

2 people found this helpful

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ALA

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on February 25, 2018

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Great

Ayesha Dhurue

A Timeless and Pulsating Read

Reviewed in India on January 15, 2020

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This book is proof that words contain within themselves, emerging from scattered streams, whole words, whole emotions, and whole dreams. Anaïs Nin’s Ladders to Fire seizes you faster than the speed of an electric current puncturing flesh. The book is essence over substance and the dissolution of that substance into a surreal dream.

What Anaïs Nin offers is closer to a prophecy – a timeless and pulsating beat – in which the toughest feeling is that of a nostalgic remembering. A recalling of love once ripe and soft - now, impenetrable and cold. A passion once ignited and breathless – now deep and obscured. Yet all this exists, within one’s internal fabric, as if part of one’s skin. The exterior remains concealed in plain sight; shifting and responding to the change of every wind, of every whisper imprinted into the skin.

It’s comforting to keep this book under covers; it is for you that this book lives. And nothing will extinguish its fire unless you stop reading it. So keep it under covers, hide it from piercing eyes. Perhaps you will not be able to forget this book. You will love it so you can let it go but only after you’ve bandaged the book’s dissonant cries as if it’s an old wound festering the veins of your own soul.

The book is about several women, each navigating the depths of her fears, desires, guilt, memories, and happiness: Some awaken to self-reflection as when light enters the mind at the end of every dream. The wakefulness of the narration is in contrast with the murkiness and mystifying appearance of these women. And it’s the realization of this quality that conveys the book's extraordinary genius.

2 people found this helpful

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Ladders To Fire Paperback – January 1, 1959

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About the authors

Gunther Stuhlmann

Anaïs Nin

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