Henry and June

Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin
Front Cover
Author(s)	Anaïs Nin
Language	English
Genre(s)	Memoir, Diary
Publisher	Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Publication date	1986
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
ISBN	978-0-15-140003-4
OCLC Number	13333571
Dewey Decimal	818/.5203 B 19
LC Classification	PS3527.I865 Z4642 1986

This article is about the Anaïs Nin book. For the movie based upon this book, see Henry & June. For the cartoon characters Henry and June, see KaBlam!.

Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (full title Henry and June: From A Journal of Love: the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931–1932)) is a 1986 book that is based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Anais Nin. It corresponds temporally to the first volume of Anaïs Nin's published diaries, written between October 1931 and October 1932, yet is radically different, in that that book begins with a description of the landscape of and around her home and never mentions her husband, whereas "Henry and June" begins with discussion of Nin's sex life and is full of her struggles and passionate relationship with husband Hugo, and then, as the novel/memoir progresses, other lovers.

This, the first of currently four volumes of unexpurgated diaries, concentrates on her passionate involvement with the writer Henry Miller and his wife June Miller.

It is noteworthy that Nin's source material--her diaries--was able to spawn two dramatically different narratives about the same time period, both widely read and praised. The expurgated diary reveals Nin the philosopher and amateur but astute psychologist. The unexpurgated diary reveals a woman breaking out into wild sexual discovery. It is introduced with surprising insight by her 2nd--coterminous--husband, who clearly understood her and her work very well. This would seem to upend popular assumptions, as he was a much younger man.

Plot summary

At the end of 1931, Nin finds herself dissatisfied with being a timid, faithful wife to her banker husband, Hugh Parker Guiler. Nin and her husband contemplate the possibility of opening their relationship, and determine that it would threaten their marriage. However when Anais meets June Miller, she is magnetically drawn to her and perceives June to be the most beautiful and charismatic woman she has ever met. Nin pursues an extremely intense, ambiguous, sexually charged friendship with her. When June leaves Nin becomes involved with Henry, and begins an uninhibited sexual and emotional affair with him, which prompts an intellectual and sensual awakening. A friendship is formed between the two that was maintained throughout both artist's lives.

Sequel

The book's sequel, Incest, which was published in 1992, continues Nin's odyssey of transgression and passion with detailed accounts of her simultaneous affairs with her analysts, Otto Rank and Rene Allendy, with Henry Miller and Antonin Artaud, as well as her incestuous affairs with her father and of her male and female cousins.

Adaptations

The book was later filmed as Henry & June, with Fred Ward as Miller, Uma Thurman as June, and Maria de Medeiros as Anaïs Nin. The movie, released in 1990, is notable as the first film to be released in the United States with an NC-17 rating.