Lillian: Woman who had a relationship with Jay in Paris, then deserted him; gave a piano concert in Mexico City during a revolution. Composite character based on the aggressive, passionate aspect of Nin’s personality that was reflected in her friend Thurema Sokol (see Mirages).

Descriptions in part from Anaïs Nin Character Dictionary by Benjamin Franklin V

Publishing History

PUBLISHING HISTORY

A Spy in the House of Love was originally published in 1954 by British Book Centre, the printing cost of which Nin’s husband paid. It was republished as a paperback in 1957 by Avon and was Nin’s most popular book up to that point, selling over 100,000 copies. Spy was later collected into Cities of the Interior (Anaïs Nin Press, 1959; Swallow Press, 1974).

—Paul Herron, Editor

INTRODUCTION

The genesis of A Spy in the House of Love was that the interpretations of Don Juan always seemed over-simplified to me. I always felt there were more complex motivations behind sensual restlessness.

A story from real life concretized the design. It was the story of a friend who believed her father employed detectives to watch her life in New York among the artists. When her father became seriously ill and near death, she questioned him. He was entirely innocent. Then she realized that she had constantly imagined this, and that whenever anyone looked at her in the subway or in a bar or in a restaurant she had fantasized it was a detective. Why? The emotional detective story of this psychological drama began with the question why.

I had also speculated on the divided self, whether it was possible to live out each different part of the self simultaneously. As in all divided selves, Sabina lives in relationships which are partly imagined. Both the unreality of them and of her whole life, besides a feeling of dispersion and fragmentation, made her wish for someone who could follow the erratic course of her acts, synthesize her, even if it meant doing so within the context of guilt and judgment. As in all neurosis, the vision of others is partial, and to express this I took inspiration from the film La Ronde in which there was a carrousel, a merry-go-round feeling. The men moved around Sabina, were highlighted during the encounter, and vanished (as would happen in life). This was completely misunderstood by the critics. They felt personally insulted that the men were not done as fully as the woman, not realizing that I had meant to take the reader inside of the mind and feelings of Sabina, with the limitations imposed by her own vision, obsessions, and fantasies, so that the reader would know how a Sabina felt.