It’s taken too long for Tracey Emin and Henry Miller to find each other. The artist has provided cover artwork for the new Penguin Modern Classics editions of Miller’s novels Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. They are scribbles and Schiele-esque swirls, shadowy dark smudges of bodies in motion. They are perfect.

Emin has corrected a long-standing problem with the bodies that have graced the covers of these books. I never objected to their nakedness per se – there are a lot of naked ladies on the inside, so it seems only natural they should appear on the outside too. What seemed wrong was their pertness, their perfection. The specifics may have changed, as one edition replaced another, but the bodies remained the same: so soft focus, so 1930s erotica in nostalgic black and white. Miller introduces Tropic of Cancer by saying: “This is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty … ” So to represent the book with a beautiful, unsullied (usually headless) young woman with a perfect body was always a fundamental mismatch.

Say what you will about Miller, and there is certainly plenty of eye‑rolling and sputtering one can do, but he was fighting against an “arty”, polished display. Against sex as something pretty, something aerobic and arousing but not at all dangerous. He talked about sex as a way to talk about life, to rail against all the ways we try to keep ourselves comfortable instead of passionate, all the ways we try to protect ourselves from our own desires. These two books, in particular, are about giving up an easier life to live on the streets and become an artist; about going to extremes to find a more authentic version of yourself. That can sometimes just be a justification for being a selfish, arrogant jerk, but there is something still thrilling about the books.

Emin, too, allows her bodies to be real, even at the risk of embarrassment and overexposure. Her work revolves around the messier parts of her life, including her own sexuality and her reproductive system.

Both artists want to show us what it is like to love, to lust, to fight for your existence and dig into your own life. It’s why Miller’s books keep selling, and it’s why Emin’s art offers an appropriate accompaniment to them. So I’m a little in love with these new covers – even if I do roll my eyes a lot when I read Henry Miller, even if I sigh a little when I see another confessional work by Tracey Emin