La Révolte Enfantine: on Georges Bataille's “la Morale De Miller” and Jean-Paul Sartre's “un Nouveau Mystique”

In 1946, Daniel Parker—the self-proclaimed “Président du Cartel d'Actions Sociales et Morales”—threatened to take legal action on the grounds of obscenity against the publication in French of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring.1 The subsequent “Affaire Miller” brought Henry Miller's authorship to the forefront of a literary debate on obscenity and censorship and resulted in the formation of a “Defense Committee for Miller and Free Expression.” Among its members were such literary figures as André Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Breton, Paul Eluard, Robert Queaneau, and a number of other well-known writers.