First published in 1937 by Kahane's Obelisk Press, Girodias added this famous title to Olympia's staple in the late '50s, shortly before censorship laws began to liberalize and The Black Book found could finally cross the channel legally. Though owing much to lifelong friend Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, The Black Book stands on its own with a portrait of the artist as an angry young man, chronicling numerous events among artists and others in a seedy London hotel.