Henry Miller in the context of "Edgard Varèse"

The Rive Gauche (French pronunciation: [riv ɡoʃ]; Left Bank) is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here the river flows roughly westward, splitting the city into two parts. When facing downstream, the southern bank is to the left, whereas the northern bank (or Rive Droite) is to the right.

The Rive Gauche is associated with artists, writers, and philosophers including Colette, Margaret Anderson, Djuna Barnes, Natalie Barney, Sylvia Beach, Erik Satie, Kay Boyle, Bryher, Caresse Crosby, Nancy Cunard, H.D., Janet Flanner, Jane Heap, Maria Jolas, Mina Loy, Henry Miller, Adrienne Monnier, Anaïs Nin, Jean Rhys, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Renee Vivien, Edith Wharton Pablo Picasso, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Henri Matisse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Baldwin, and dozens of members of the great artistic community at Montparnasse. The phrase implies a sense of bohemianism, counterculture, and creativity. Some of its famous streets are the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Boulevard Saint-Michel, the Rue de Vaugirard, and Rue Bonaparte.

Caresse Crosby (born Mary Phelps Jacob; April 20, 1892 – January 24, 1970) was an American publisher and writer. Time called her the "literary godmother to the Lost Generation of expatriate writers in Paris." As an American patron of the arts, she and her second husband, Harry Crosby, founded the Black Sun Press, which was instrumental in publishing some of the early works of many authors who would later become famous, among them Anaïs Nin, Kay Boyle, Ernest Hemingway, Archibald MacLeish, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Hart Crane, and Robert Duncan. She was also the recipient of a patent for the first successful modern bra.

Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (/ˌænaɪˈiːs niːn/ AN-eye-EESS NEEN; French: [ana.is nin]; February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of the composer Joaquín Nin and the classically trained singer Rosa Culmell. Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris (1924–1940), and the remaining half of her life in the United States, where she became an established author.

Nin wrote journals prolifically from age eleven until her death. Her journals, many of which were published during her lifetime, detail her private thoughts and personal relationships. Her journals also describe her marriages to Hugh Parker Guiler and Rupert Pole, in addition to her numerous affairs with men and women, including those with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and writer Henry Miller, both of whom profoundly influenced Nin and her writing.