Henry Miller in the context of The Rosy Crucifixion

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.

Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (French: [ɛdɡaʁ viktɔʁ aʃil ʃaʁl vaʁɛz]; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coined the term "organized sound" in reference to his own musical aesthetic. Varèse's conception of music reflected his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded". He conceived the elements of his music in terms of "sound-masses", likening their organization to the natural phenomenon of crystallization. Varèse thought that "to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise", and he posed the question, "what is music but organized noises?"

Although his complete surviving works only last about three hours, he has been recognized as an influence by several major composers of the late 20th century. Varèse saw potential in using electronic media for sound production, and his use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music"; Henry Miller described him as "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound".

Tropic of Cancer is an autobiographical novel by Henry Miller that is best known as "notorious for its candid sexuality", with the resulting social controversy considered responsible for the "free speech that we now take for granted in literature". It was first published in 1934 by the Obelisk Press in Paris, France; however, this edition was banned in the United States. Its publication in 1961 in the United States by Grove Press led to obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography in the early 1960s. In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the book non-obscene. It is regarded as an important work of 20th-century literature.

Black Spring is a book of ten short stories by the American writer Henry Miller, published in 1936 by the Obelisk Press in Paris, France. Black Spring was Miller's second published book, following Tropic of Cancer and preceding Tropic of Capricorn. The book was written in 1932-33 while Miller was living in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine (aka Clichy), a northwestern suburb of Paris. Like Tropic of Cancer, the book is dedicated to Anaïs Nin.

Tropic of Capricorn is a semi-autobiographical novel by Henry Miller, first published by Obelisk Press in Paris in 1939. A prequel of sorts to Miller's first published novel, 1934's Tropic of Cancer, it was banned in the United States until a 1961 Justice Department ruling declared that its contents were not obscene.