Paris

While perusing the online photo collection of the French Ministry of Culture, I stumbled upon a real gem: A set of ten photos of Le Dôme café taken in the winter of 1931-32. The pictures provide a unique glimpse of the café as Henry Miller would have known it.

One week after his arrival in Paris in March of 1930, Henry Miller was making a circuitous exploration of his new city when he found himself drawn to a window display at the Honoré Champion bookstore on the Quai Malaquai...

Eve Adams, a peripatetic bookseller in Montparnasse who had been deported from America, helped Henry Miller promote Tropic of Cancer to a general audience on the terrasses of popular expatriate cafes.

In 1930, with the help of a pair of Paris guidebooks, Henry Miller greatly broadened his knowledge of his adopted city and its history.

Soon after arriving in Paris, Henry Miller discovered a restaurant to his liking on the rue des Canettes. It was “a dirty little place, with sawdust on the floor and flies even in the winter,” but its prices fit his budget,—which was virtually non-existent.

On his nightly trek through the Place de Clichy in the period of 1932-1934, Henry Miller’s attention would have naturally been drawn to the massive Gaumont Palace. The sleek Art Deco cinema with seating for 6,000 was then the largest film venue in the world.