Paris, France: Siana Editions (1936)

First Edition.

One of 249 copies privately printed in 1936 at the Imprimerie Sainte Catherine in Bruges, Belgium. This is the true first edition of The House of Incest, self-published by Nin under Siana (Anais spelled backwards) Editions in Paris.

This first edition is soft cover with glassine wrappers. The special limitation page cites that Nin signed these copies, but this copy is not signed.

A third of the glassine wrapper is missing from the front. The soft cover shows wear and age with some bumping to the corners.The interior pages are clean and quite lovely, and the binding is tight. Overall, this very rare first edition is in very good condition.

Often compared to the style of the French Surrealists, Anais Nin's House of Incest ranks among the most unique representations of English prose in the 20th century, free-flowing, evoking dreamlike images that weave in and around the passages. Among the hallucinatory words, heavily symbolic images come into focus: the fabled house in Louveciennes, France; the erotic liaison with June Miller; the god-like mentor, D.H. Lawrence; and impossible incestuous love—all fragments of a nebulous being slowly coalescing into an elevated state of existence.

Nin's use of the word incest is not literal. She used it metaphorically to describe selfish love, a risk-free love that will eventually turn into a nightmare.