Miller's critical study on Rimbaud, The Time of the Assassins, was first published in 1946 and 1949 in two parts by New Directions as ‘When Do Angels Cease to Resemble Themselves?’ It came after Miller's return to America in 1940 after ten years in Paris and six months in Greece, followed by a regrettable year-long road trip that became the material for the personal and minor commercial failure, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945). During the interim, Miller spent a few years in southern California trying to sell his watercolours and aspiring to write Hollywood screenplays, followed by a move to the rustic and woodsy Big Sur, California. It is here where Miller finally found an agreeable, if still difficult, lifestyle, married for a third time and looking forward to raising his new daughter and son, though he was well into his fifties. In Big Sur, Miller settled permanently back in America, but not without the usual, endless financial hardships and haphazard circumstances that would always dictate the path of his life.