Plot: Starving writer, living in Paris, has lots of time for sex, some of which he pays for.

Why it's on the list: Miller is the original dirty old man, who, more than any other author, made the expatriate life in Paris part of the national wet dream. Live free and fuck, and contemplate the mysteries of a sex-crazed world. Published in 1934, its reputation grew with three decades of censorship. In WWII, soldiers returning from Europe filled duffel bags with copies of D.H. Lawrence, Frank Harris and Henry Miller. An early Playboy cartoon by Shel Silverstein showed the bearded artist at a bookstall ordering "Ten copies of 'Tropic of Cancer,' twelve copies of...." On June 22, 1964 The Supreme Court declared Tropic not obscene.

Excerpt: Llona now, she had a cunt. I know because she sent us some hairs from down below. Llona -- a wild ass snuffing pleasure out of the wind. On every high hill she played the harlot -- and sometimes in telephone booths and toilets.... She lay in Tottenham Court Road with her dress pulled up and fingered herself. She used candles, Roman candles, and door knobs. Not a prick in the land big enough for her...not one. Men went inside her and curled up. She wanted extension pricks, self-exploding rockets, hot boiling oil made of wax and creosote. She would cut off your prick and keep it inside her forever, if you gave her permission. One cunt out of a million, Llona!