Delta of Venus is a book of fifteen short stories that Anaïs Nin largely wrote in the 1940s as erotica for a private collector. It was published posthumously in 1977.I. Ousby, ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (1995) p. 683Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus & Little Birds (1996), pp. 13–16
In 1994, a film inspired by the book was directed by Zalman King.
Background The short stories in this anthology were written during the 1940s for a private client known simply as "Collector". This "Collector" commissioned Nin, along with other now well-known writers (including Henry Miller and the poet George Barker), to produce erotic fiction for his private consumption.Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus & Little Birds (1996), pp. 13–16 He has since been identified as Roy M. Johnson (1881–1960), a wealthy businessman from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who discovered the Healdton Oil Pool.Paul Herron, Anaïs Nin: A Book of Mirrors (Sky Blue Press, 1996), p.427
Despite being told to leave poetic language aside and concentrate on graphic, sexually-explicit scenarios, Nin gave the stories a literary flourish and a layer of images and ideas beyond the pornographic. In her diary, she jokingly called herself "the madam of this snobbish literary house of prostitution, from which vulgarity was excluded".* Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus & Little Birds (1996), p. 16
While using the and other writings such as those of Krafft-Ebing as models, Nin was conscious that the languages of male and female sexuality were distinct.Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus & Little Birds (1996), pp. 15 & 19 Although at times she scorned her erotica, and feared their effect on her literary reputation,Anne T. Salvatore, Anaïs Nin's Narratives, University Press of Florida (2001) , p. 17 they have been seen by sex-positive feminists as pioneering work.Susie Bright, Totally Heterotica (1995), p. 2
Short stories The short stories that Delta of Venus anthologizes are: The Hungarian Adventurer Mathilde The Boarding School The Ring Mallorca Artists and Models Lilith Marianne The Veiled Woman Elena The Basque and Bijou Pierre Manuel Linda Marcel Its preface contains entries from Nin's Diary, which expressed her hope that its unexpurgated version would one day be published.
In 2021, the pornographic film studio Thousand Faces released a short film, Mathilde, based on Nin's story of the same name.
See also D. H. Lawrence Émile Zola George Sand Mons pubis
References
Further reading Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory, Taylor & Francis, 1997, , p. 190 Andrew Gibson, Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel: from Leavis to Levinas, Routledge, 1999, , p. 177 Noël Riley Fitch, Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993) Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus, Penguin Books, 2008