As influential and revelatory in its day as Fifty Shades of Grey is now Anaïs Nin's Delta of
Venus is a groundbreaking anthology of erotic short stories published in Penguin Modern
Classics In Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters.
Creating her own 'language of the senses' she explores an area that was previously the domain
of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose
evokes the essence of female sexuality in a world where only love has meaning. This edition
includes a preface adapted from Anaïs Nin's diary that establishes a context for the work's
gestation and a postscript to her diary entries in which she explains her desire to use
'women's language seeing sexual experience from a woman's point of view'. Anaïs Nin
(1903-1977) born in Paris was the daughter of a Franco-Danish singer and a Cuban pianist. Her
first book - a defence of D. H. Lawrence - was published in the 1930s. Her prose poem House of
Incest (1936) was followed by the collection of three novellas collected as Winter of Artifice
(1939). In the 1940s she began to write erotica for an anonymous client and these pieces are
collected in Delta of Venus and Little Birds (both published posthumously). During her later
years Anaïs Nin lectured frequently at universities throughout the USA in 1974 and was elected
to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters. If you enjoyed Delta of Venus
you might like Stephen Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women also available in Penguin Modern
Classics. 'Anaïs Nin excites male readers and incites female readers ... and she comes against
life with a vital artistry and boldness' The New York Times Book Review
