Anais Nin's Lost World: Paris in Words and Pictures 1924-1939

Few writers are as legendary as Anaïs Nin. Her diaries, both expurgated and unexpurgated, and a host of biographies have documented her life in an almost unprecedented way, yet she remains shrouded in mystery. Who is the woman behind the myth?

Anaïs Nin’s Lost World depicts Nin’s life from the perspective of her surroundings during the most important era in her life—her Paris years, from 1924 to 1939, when she met Henry Miller and came into her own as a writer and as a sensual woman. This book gives us a vivid picture of Nin’s turbulent life in the 1920s and 1930s. Not only was her emotional life chaotic, but she and her husband Hugh Guiler moved several times during their stay in France. Anaïs Nin created many homes in Paris, but she found sumptuous peace in her house in Louveciennes, which Miller dubbed “the laboratory of the soul.”

In Anaïs Nin’s Lost World, Britt Arenander allows us to follow in Nin’s and Miller’s footsteps. She has brilliantly woven text and photographs into a tapestry of the Paris that Nin and Miller came to love so much.

The book’s unique artwork, including vintage postcards, rare and recent photographs, and an interactive map, depicts a Paris that has disappeared and yet lives on in its buildings, streets, and neighborhoods.