Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer was ruled not obscene by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1964.
Miller’s autobiographical novel was first published in Paris in 1934 because American publishers would not handle its explicit sexual language and frank descriptions of expatriate life. Grove Press issued an American edition in 1961, triggering obscenity prosecutions and confiscation attempts in several states.
The legal issue was not whether the book was sexually explicit; it plainly was. The question was whether its literary and artistic value gave it constitutional protection under the First Amendment. Courts initially disagreed. Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and other jurisdictions reached different conclusions about the book’s obscenity.
In Grove Press, Inc. v. Gerstein, decided in 1964, the Supreme Court cited the same-day Jacobellis v. Ohio ruling and overturned state findings that Tropic of Cancer was obscene. The decision helped establish a more demanding constitutional standard for literary censorship. A common mix-up is 1962, when a Massachusetts court still treated the book as obscene; the nationwide Supreme Court milestone was 1964.