William Burroughs' Intro To Naked Lunch At $175,000

by Stephen J. Gertz

Calling Dr. Benway:

The first and final draft corrected typescripts of William S. Burroughs' Introduction to the first American edition (NY: Grove Press, 1962) of Naked Lunch (Paris: Olympia Press, 1959), his seminal, controversial work and one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature, have come to market. The asking price is $175,000.

From the collection of his friend and editor, Alan Ansen, they are being offered by Glenn Horowitz, Bookseller, the New York City dealer who has made a habit of pulling literary rabbits out of his hat. Within that context these typescripts may be fairly ranked as the rabbit who ate Cleveland.

The first, titled "Postscript" in Burroughs' penciled holograph, is comprised of five recto-only leaves corrected by Burroughs in black ink, with page numbers in same. It is unknown when, exactly, he wrote it but it appears to be c. 1960.

The heavily corrected typescript is Burroughs' first pass at his extended essay, Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness, that would serve as the introduction to the American edition of Naked Lunch. “Postscript” discursively explores the themes and sentiments which motivated Burroughs to write the introduction; it is the text upon which the polished, buffed, and published version was based. 

Bits and pieces of “Postscript” can be found throughout “Deposition,” as well as in its final post-postscript, and the relationship between “Postscript” and the published introduction is immediately obvious. For example, page one of the “Postscript” typescript includes the following notes:

"Hasheiesh [sic], Mescaline, LSD -- ? under the title what is? Who must have junk to live in the structure? When there are no addicts carriers will disintegrate - virus opium."

"Talk exact manner in which junk virus controls words in monkey considered sacred by those who purpose to keep the virus of numbers or remove the bottom number street to cover basic frequency."

The published introduction directly addresses the points noted above, concerning the difference between hallucinogens - hashish, mescaline, LSD  - and heroin. Burroughs writes in part, “There is no evidence that the use of any hallucinogen results in physical dependence. The action of these drugs is physiologically opposite to the action of junk. A lamentable confusion between the two classes of drugs has arisen owing to the zeal of the U.S. and other Narcotic departments...” The introduction also sets forth upon “the exact manner in which the junk virus operates.” 

Within the five-page “Postscript” is a handful of dialogue and a paragraph referring to “Mr Bradly Mr Martin,” a character appearing in the novels of Burroughs' Nova Trilogy: Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket that Exploded (1962), and Nova Express (1964). In part, they read:

“Light in eyes and I saw the brains...no time to stop and eat switch fuzz behind me...I told him I'd do it I told him if I catch you on the West Side push you on the tracks...hustle your own mooch...”

"And he looked at me over the blade caught the tarnish black and white subway dawn..Old photo..Couldn't reach me with the knife and fell on the tracks I told him he would and he rushed for I – overcoat I held there teaching him the cloth in the turnstile and learned the cloth stuck there like star fish smoking and switch fuzz whistling down the iron stairs and I caught an uptown cold sore…"

"Mr Bradly Mr Martin teaching him the cloth in the junk hold saw the brains fuzz the rail…"

Neither the dialogue nor the narrative made it into the Introduction and appear to be unpublished.

The final draft appears in three typescripts:

• “Deposition. Testimony Concerning a Sickness,” (ca. 1960), a corrected ribbon typescript of thirteen recto-only leaves (including the one-page “PSS or PPS” noted below), with Burroughs’ holograph corrections in blue ink and copy-editing notes in red ink.

•“Deposition. Testimony Concerning a Sickness,” (ca. 1960), a corrected carbon typescript of eleven recto-only leaves (lacking final page) very neatly incorporating in another hand the changes to the ribbon typescript above, either by erasing the type and replacing it with the correct text or interlined with Burroughs’ text.

• “PSS or PPS.” (ca. 1960), a one-leaf corrected ribbon typescript with Burroughs’ holograph corrections in black ink. It is stapled to “Deposition” above. 

These are a ribbon typescript and carbon copy of Burroughs’ introduction, "Deposition,” as published by Grove Press. The thirteen-page typescript is corrected by Burroughs and his changes are incorporated into the carbon copy as well as the final text as published. Burroughs’ holograph annotations include clarifications to language, e.g., “these notes” becomes “the notes which have now been published,” “measurable” becomes “accurately measurable,” etc., and include corrections to spelling and changes in emphasis with the addition of underlining.

The one-page “PSS or PPS” was not included in the book but did appear with “Deposition” in Grove Press' Evergreen Review (Volume 4, Issues 11-12). It was introduced “as a late post-postscript - a newspeak précis.”

Alan Ansen ("Rollo Greb" in Kerouac's On the Road) was a poet, playwright, and close friend of many Beat Generation writers. Living in Tangier, he spent time with Paul Bowles, Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and others. He lived in Greece during the last forty or so years of his life

Considered to be the only man capable of shaping the hundreds of random pages generated by Burroughs into publishable form, Ansen was brought in by Ginsberg to help edit Naked Lunch. He later preserved the Ginsberg-Burroughs correspondence along with many of the photographs from the period.

To have fresh Burroughs autograph/typescript material enter the marketplace (ABPC records no Burroughs typescript/manuscript material coming to auction within the last thirty-six years) at this late date is somewhat miraculous; all that could be found had, it seemed, been unearthed. But that was before The Amazing Horowitz waved his magic wand, said "abracadabra," and conjured this material out of nowhere and into and out of his hat.

• • •

And now, a treat: Burroughs recites passages concerning Dr. Benway - the Marcus Welby, M.D. from Hell who "performs appendectomies with a rusty sardine can" - from Naked Lunch in his deadpan nasal monotone mashed-up with footage from an episode of Dr. Kildare, and behold! Burroughs' voice coming out of Richard Chamberlain's mouth. Oh, to hear Burroughs croon Three Stars Will Shine Tonight, the 1961 TV show's hit theme song.


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All images courtesy of Glenn Horowitz Bookseller with our thanks.

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Innocence Found in Scarce Dust Jacket

by Stephen J. Gertz

Take a good look; you'll likely never see another first edition copy of Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence (1920) in its scarce first state dust jacket in this condition ever again. It's usually lost along with the innocence of the age it illuminates, America in the 1870s and the Victorian social standards of contemporary New York high society.

When seen at all the first state dust jacket usually proclaims "Chips Ahoy!" It's a rare cookie without divots aplenty at spine ends and along the edges as if leaf-eating insects chomped a banquet.

First edition, first printing (with "1" on p. 365) copies without dust jacket currently go for $2250-$9000. Copies in the first state dust jacket cost considerably more. The copy under notice, for instance, is being offered by Peter Harrington at $31,400 (£20,000).  Prices are extremely sensitive to DJ condition. Another copy in the first state dust jacket with a chunks missing at the spine head and upper right corner sold for $23,500 not too long ago.

This copy has a Wharton signature tipped-in to a prelim leaf. Per usual with clipped and mounted autographs it adds little to the value of the book. Inscribed and signed copies of The Age of Innocence in any edition, however, are even rarer than copies in the first state dust jacket. Only one such copy has entered the marketplace within the last thirty years, currently offered by Charles Agvent for $31,250.

Put this dj on that inscribed copy and you'd have a lollipazooza, easily worth more than double the price of the two sold separately. It becomes a $75,000-$100,000 book, greater than the sum of its parts.

Clearly, this is one very expensive dust jacket. It's not in the same class as the DJ to The Great Gatsby, which can add up to $175,000 to the price of a first edition copy, but, like Gatsby in DJ, it remains highly scarce and desirable and thus highly susceptible to fraud, i.e. restoration without declaration. Dust jackets to The Age of Innocence that raise suspicion should be examined under black light to reveal evidence of not-so-divine intervention.

First state dust jacket points:

• Quotes on rear panel by Percy Lubbock pulled from The Novels of Edith Wharton, an article that originally appeared in the January 1915 issue of the Quarterly Review.

In the second state dust jacket, Lubbock's quotes are replaced by those by William Phelps that originally appeared in the New York Times review, October 17, 1920.

• The price on the jacket is $2.

“There are only three or four American novelists who can be thought of as major and Edith Wharton is one" (Gore Vidal).

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WHARTON, Edith. The Age of Innocence. New York: D. Appleton, 1920. First edition, first printing. Octavo. 364, [2] pp. Publisher's original red cloth. Original first state dust jacket.

Hart 814. Garrison 30.I.a.

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Images courtesy of Peter Harrington, with our thanks.

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Of related Interest:

The $175,000 Dust Jacket Comes To Auction.
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Fascinating Lawrence of Arabia Letter Comes To Market

by Stephen J. Gertz

Hold on to your keffiyeh: the asking price for a letter written by T.E. Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia that has recently come into the marketplace is $47,514 (€35,000). For Lawrence collectors it's an acquisition dream, for historians a must read. For Lawrence of Arabia fans, it's Peter O'Toole's  mythical hero three years before he got on his motorcycle for the last time.

Sent from Plymouth on October 12, 1932,  Lawrence wrote to Maj. Sir Hubert Young (1885-1950), who was attached to Prince Faisal I beginning in early 1918 as a British assistant political officer during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Later in 1918 he was awarded the DSO for gallantry in Mezerib, Syria. After the war, he joined the Foreign Office in London and at the time of this letter was First Minister of Baghdad.

Lawrence writes about reading what was, apparently, galleys or an early review copy of Young's book, The Independent Arab: The Author's Experiences with T.E. Lawrence, Etc (London: John Murray, 1933):

"This is unlikely to reach you in time. I saw Lady Young in London and talked an hour with her and heard much news. You are a fortunate person, I think ...

"I didn't dare tell G[orrell] that I thought your first part - - Turkey before the war - - a definitive evocation of the real thing. I felt every stage of your journey. The war was good - - but for subjective reasons I am out of liking the war. The politics were too restrained.

"Lady Young explained that as a still-serving official you couldn't let yourself go, politically. I see the point, but still regret it. It would have been a better book if you had sacrificed your future to it. When you are old and free the fire may have gone out of you.

"Parts of the book were so like you. I could hear and see you.

"It was not Constantinople [?] that burnt you into my memory, but your saying one day that you were afraid - - of some incident or other. That was my first encounter with a really thruthful person.

"I may have been wrong to suggest you for Bedouin actions during the war: but Nasir's Jurf-Hesa demolition was the biggest Bedouin demolition of the northern war, and it was your organizing. No, I don't think I was wrong. You took transport & H[?] work because its need was greater, that's all.

"It is very good news that you are for a governorship next [Nyassaland, i.e. Malawi]. I hope you & Lady Young like the life.

"Don't imagine that in refusing the puff to Gorrell I did it because I grudged it. You can command anything I have and am at any time. Look what you have done in Irak! That's a debt not easily to be paid."

Regarding the Nasir demolition that Lawrence refers to, Richard Aldington, in Lawrence of Arabia. A Biographical Enquiry (London, 1955), wrote: "Just before the New Year, 1918, Sharif Nasir attacked and captured the station of Jurf (between Maan and Hesa) with 200 prisoners. This result had been accomplished by Beni Sakr Bedouins and one mountain gun"  (p. 216).

Lawrence signs the letter "T.E.S." - Thomas Edward Shaw - his post-war pseudonym. Being Lawrence of Arabia had become an onerous burden to him and he simply wanted to be swallowed up into obscurity. It is no secret that he was bitterly disappointed and frustrated by how events in the Middle East had evolved during and after the war, as hinted at in the letter: "The politics [of your book] were too restrained."

The British and French were by no means restrained in their power grab in the region, carving it up under the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and in the immediate aftermath of the War establishing the boundaries for the Middle Eastern nations we now know under a mandate system sanctioned by the new League of Nations.

Very soon after that Arab resistance movements emerged to challenge the new system. Had it been written in 1919 instead of 1971, Arabs may have sung the following anthem:

Change it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fall that's all
But the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

(Pete Townshend)

Lawrence of Arabia would have ruefully nodded his head. 
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LAWRENCE, T[homas] E[dward], British explorer, intelligence officer, and writer (1888-1935). Autograph letter signed ("T. E. S."). Plymouth, 12. X. 1932. Small 4to. 2 pp.

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Images courtesy of Inlibris, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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Raymond Chandler Gripes To His Agent About Agents

by Stephen J. Gertz

In a letter dated July 11, 1952, Raymond Chandler wrote his agent, H.N. Swanson ("Swanie") mentioning, among other things, that he is "still fussing around with the end of a book, a draft of which I unwisely sent East to Carl Brandt and Bernice Baumgarten [of Brandt & Brandt of New York, Baumgarten an associate and wife of novelist James Gould Cozzens] and received in return a lot of picayunish criticism which annoyed me without being in the least helpful."

Chandler goes on to muse about not being the sort of writer who publishes in the Saturday Evening Post, and reflects on the relationship between writers and agents. "During my fairly long association with poor old Sydney Sanders, I did learn exactly how to benefit by the advice of New York literary agents. Thank them politely, and then do something else." Brandt and Baumgarten were Chandler's former agent and editor, respectively; the manuscript they had criticized was The Long Goodbye. (See Selected Letters, p 315n.)

In another typically colorful and direct letter by Chandler to Swanson, dated December 5, 1952 and three pages in length, Chandler explains why he wants to handle matters concerning his book rights himself. Chandler begins by "remarking in passing that you (including Eddie) are the only agent that I have been able to like," then goes on to once again air his grievances with former agents Baumgarten and Brandt, alluding to their criticism of his draft of The Long Goodbye.

He then launches into a page and a half critique of the ineffectualness and superfluousness of literary agents in general. "The English agent and the American agent can't even write a contract; they don't know when royalty statements are due; they don't know if they are paid when they should be paid; they don't even know when the books are published unless they get author's copies, and they don't always get author's copies. The whole thing is just a bluff." Elsewhere he declares, "I will never again submit a book manuscript to an agent unless a publisher has first approved it. If I have to get kicked in the teeth, okay, but I won't take it from anybody but the head man." 

Chandler provides several other reasons for wanting to handle his book rights himself, and offers to let Swanson continue to handle matters related to motion picture, television, radio, and serial rights.

I was acquainted with Swanie (1899-1991), who was still active when I was a story editor in Hollywood during the early 1980s; I spoke to him a few times. The dominant literary agent in his heyday he was still respected as one of the greats by those in the know; his client list was awe-inspiring. He began as a writer and editor; he knew the writers soul and how to deal with those who would rob it and then pick their pockets. He was of the old-school and by the 1980s was sort of a fossil in the new Hollywood to those who didn't know any better.

"Harold Norling Swanson, known as Swanie, was a native of Centerville, Iowa, and a graduate of Grinnell College. He began his career as a writer and was a founder and the editor for eight years of College Humor, a Chicago-based monthly that became a showcase for new talent. In 1931, he moved to California and became a producer, making about a dozen films for RKO.

"Three years later, Mr. Swanson rented a building on Sunset Boulevard and became a pioneering literary agent. By 1939, when 110 screen writers were under contract to 20th Century Fox, he represented 80 of them.

"Among his early clients for screenplays were William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pearl Buck and Raymond Chandler. More recently, he represented the Hollywood efforts of writers like Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Theroux and Joseph Wambaugh. Among the scripts he sold were the 1946 version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "The Big Sleep" (1946), "Old Yeller" (1957), "Butterfield 8" (1960) and "The Mosquito Coast" (1986)" (NY Times obit).

These letters are being offered by Bonham's in their Fine Books & Manuscripts sale, February 17, 2013.

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Images courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.
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Allen Ginsberg On Neal Cassady's Ashes

by Stephen J. Gertz

On January 17, 1971, a college student in Pennsylvania wrote a letter seeking assistance from Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. 

Dear Mr. Ginsberg,

I am a junior at Bucknell University at Lewisberg. This winter I have been gathering material for an exhibit to be displayed in the University library the latter part of this spring and through the summer months. I have chosen 'Allen Ginsberg -- Profile of a Poet' to be the theme.

I have devoted a great deal of time and effort to this project -- research and collection of displayable items of your notable career.

The exhibit, I think, will be a good one, but it has nothing personal relating to the subject.

In short, I have written you with the greatest of hope that you would send me your autograph (letter or simply signature) to make the exhibit more interesting. Your effort, believe me, will be greatly appreciated.

Cordially,

Larry Diefenbach

Ginsberg immediately replied upon receipt of the letter on January 21st, returning it with his holographic response.

Larry -

Here's a poem + some odd items you may'nt have seen?

Good luck - Allen G. Jan 21, 1971

Delicate eyes that blinded blue Rockies, all ash
Nipples, ribs touched w/my thumb are ash
Mouth my tongue touched once or twice all ash
bony cheeks soft on my belly are Cinder, ash
earlobes & eyelids, youthful cock-tip, curly pubis
breast warmth, man palm, high school thigh,
baseball biceps arm, asshole anneal'd to
               silken skin all ashes, all ashes again.

Ginsberg dates the poem's creation June 1968, signs it, and includes his hand-drawn Buddha's footprint logo.

Neal Cassady, Beat Generation muse and the vivid model for wild man Dean Moriarty in Kerouac's On the Road and Ginsberg's on-and-off lover for twenty years, died in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico on February  4, 1968. His body was found by the railroad tracks just outside of town; he had passed-out after walking the tracks on a cold and rainy night after attending a wedding party and was discovered in a coma. He died a few hours later, just shy of his 42d birthday after a lifetime of terminal velocity in the pursuit of heightened existence. Cassady was cremated and the disposition of his remains became contentious, with his wife, Carolyn, fending off two women who laid claim to his heart while he was alive, and post-mortem. 

Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, used car lot, San Francisco, 1955.
©Allen Ginsberg Estate

His "ashes were the subject of squabbles, first between Carolyn and 'a wild-looking hippie girl' and then with Diana Hansen, to whom Neal had got hitched in 1950, while still married to Carolyn. She called repeatedly, requesting a portion. Carolyn resisted at first, but then 'sent Diana some ashes, with love'” (NY Times, Nov 19, 2006).

Ginsberg later wrote:

"in 1968, I went down from San Francisco to visit Carolyn Cassady in Los Gatos. There's a poem of mine called 'On Neal's Ashes' which is a record of that visit, of opening the wooden container from Mexico City which had a silken bag full of his ashes. I opened the box and touched my finger inside of it and then looked in it and there was all this black and white cinder with a little rough stuff in it, pieces of bone that were burnt and blackened. So I said, 'Oh, so that's what happened to Neal Cassady.' It seemed magical that he'd disappeared and transformed into this tiny pound of gritty ashes. But it was definitive as his death. I realized it had all come to that. I hadn't seen him for a number of years and his disappearance was no big deal until I actually saw the remains of his body" (A Valentine for William Blake, Introduction to an unpublished manuscript of Ginsberg's Blake lectures).

This letter is being offered at Bonham's-San Francisco in their Fine Books & Manuscripts sale on February 17, 2013. It is estimated to sell for $800-$1200.

Ginsberg can be heard reciting On Neal's Ashes on Holy Soul Jelly Roll Vol. 4: Ashes & Blues.

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Letter images courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.
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Thomas De Quincey Writes While High As A Kite

by Stephen J. Gertz

"I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium-taking: and, what I took, I took under every disadvantage. But I took it: -- and in an hour, oh! Heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished, was now a trifle in my eyes: -- this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me -- in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea - a [pharmakon nepenthez] for all human woes: here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered: happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint bottle: and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail coach" (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater).

At an unknown date post-1804, the year that he first tried opium at age nineteen, Thomas De Quincey, famed author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (anonymously published in London magazine in 1821 and in book form in 1822), was working on a draft of an as yet unidentified or unpublished essay.

In 250 words over eighteen lines with numerous cancellations and insertions, De Quincey, apparently after chug-a-lugging laudanum (tincture of opium), to which he was addicted, took flight and soared to Xanadu as a  phoenix ecstatically lost in the ozone and content to be above it all, a mummified skeleton lying in a blissful state. That one-page, drug-addled manuscript has now come to auction.

It reads, in part:

"In a clock-case housed in a warm chamber of a spacious English mansion (inevitably as being English, so beautifully clean, so admirably preserved, [noise there is none, dust there is none, neither moth nor worm doth corrupt] how sweet it is to lie! – If thieves break through and steal, they will not steal a mummy; or not, unless they mistake the mummy for an eight-day clock. And if fire should arise, or even if it should descend from heaven is there not a Phoenix Office, able to look either sort of fire (earthly or heavenly) in the face ... Mummy or anti-Mummy, Skeleton or Anti-Skeleton, the Phoenix soars higher above both, and flaps her victorious wings in utter defiance of all that the element of fire can accomplish—making it her boast to ride in the upper air high above all malice from earthly enemies...."

To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, Write high, edit sober. It appears, however, that De Quincey, never completely free of opium's grip, remained stoned through the editorial process. This is is an opium-soaked apparition, a fantastic proto-Surrealist Gothic phantasmagory. It must have seemed to De Quincey that he had broken the boundaries of prose and ascended to that enchanted place where reveries take flight onto paper without volition or physical exertion, highly automatic writing while under the spell of the Oneiroi, the dream-spirits who emerge like bats from their deep cavern in Erebos, the land of eternal darkness beyond the rising sun, the infinite night that day cannot break. Don't mess with the Muse, feed Her. Judging by his penmanship there was laudanum in his inkwell.

This De Quincey manuscript, an early example of high-lit. during the Romantic period demonstrating the effect of opium on literary creation, is being offered at Bonham's Fine Books & Manuscripts sale, February 17, 2013, in San Francisco where it is estimated to sell for $800-$1200.

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Manuscript image courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.
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Extraordinary John Lennon Letter To Eric Clapton: Join My New Band!

by Stephen J. Gertz

A spectacular, significant and revealing eight-page handwritten and signed  letter, undated but c. mid-late 1969, from John Lennon to Eric Clapton inviting him to team up in a new band, is being offered by auctioneer Profiles in History in its Property of a Distinguished American Private Collector sale on December 18, 2012. It is estimated to sell for $20,000 - $30,000.

Over a thousand words, it was written by Lennon on behalf of Yoko and him after the Beatles  split-up and Lennon and Ono were seeking an opportunity to create music of a more profound and artistic nature - and "revolutionary." Clapton had left Cream when it curdled, intent on pursuing a solo career. Lennon and Clapton had originally met in the mid-1960s when Eric was with The Yardbirds and they had remained friends.

Their careers were in a state of flux and John sensed a unique opportunity. "I’ve/we’ve long admired your music—and always kept an eye open to see what you’ve been up to lately. I really feel I/we can bring out the best in you."

The letter reads in full:

Dear Eric and

I’ve been meaning to write or call you for a few weeks now. I think maybe writing will give you and yours more time to think.

You must know by now that Yoko and I rate your music and yourself very highly, always have. You also know the kind of music we’ve been making and hope to make. Anyway, the point is, after missing the Bangla-Desh concert, we began to feel more and more like going on the road, but not the way I used to with the Beatles—night after night of torture. We mean to enjoy ourselves, take it easy, and maybe even see some of the places we go to! We have many ‘revolutionary’ ideas for presenting shows that completely involve the audience—not just as ‘Superstars’ up there—blessing the people—but that’s another letter really.

I’ll get more to the point. We’ve asked Klaus [Voormann], Jim Keltner, Nicky Hopkins — Phil Spector even! to form a ‘nucleus’ group (Plastic Ono Band)—and between us all would decide what—if any—augmentation to the group we’d like—e.g. saxs, vocal group, they all agreed so far—and of course we had YOU!!! in mind as soon as we decided.

In the past when Nicky  was working around (Stones, etc.) bringing your girl/woman/wife was frowned on—with us it’s the opposite, Nicky’s missus—will also come with us—on stage if she wants (Yoko has ideas for her!)—or backstage. Our uppermost concern is to have a happy group in body and mind. Nobody will be asked to do anything that they don’t want to, no-one will be held to any contract of any sort—(unless they wanted to, of course!).

Back to music. I’ve/we’ve long admired your music—and always kept an eye open to see what you’ve been up to lately. I really feel I/we can bring out the best in you—(same kind of security, financial or otherwise will help) but the main thing is the music. I consider Klaus, Jim, Nicky, Phil, Yoko, and you could make the kind of sound that could bring back the Balls in rock ‘n’ roll.

Both of us have been thru the same kind of shit/pain that I know you’ve had—and I know we could help each other in that area—but mainly Eric—I know I can bring out something great—in fact greater in you that had been so far evident in your music, I hope to bring out the same kind of greatness in all of us—which I know will happen if/when we get together. I’m not trying to pressure you in any way and would quite understand if you decide against joining us, we would still love and respect you. We’re not asking you for your ‘name,’ I’m sure you know this—it’s your mind we want!

Yoko and I are not interested in earning bread from public appearances, but neither do we expect the rest of the band (who mostly have families) to work for free—they/you must all be happy money wise as well—otherwise what’s the use for them to join us. We don’t ask you/them to ratify everything we believe politically—but we’re certainly interested in “revolutionizing” the world thru music, we’d love to 'do' Russia, China, Hungary, Poland, etc. 

A friend of ours just got back from Moscow, and the kids over there are really hip—they have all the latest sounds on tape from giant radios they have. 'Don’t come without your guitar' was the message they sent there are millions of people in the East—who needed to be exposed to our kind of freedom/music. We can change the world—and have a ball at the same time.

We don’t want to work under such pressure we feel dead on stage or have to pep ourselves up to live, maybe we could do 2 shows a week even, tentatively (nothing definite) goes like this:

I know we have to rehearse sometimes or other, I’m sick of going on and jamming every live session. I’ve also always wanted to go across the Pacific from the U.S. thru all those beautiful islands—across to Australia, New Zealand, Japan,--wherever, you know—Tahiti—Tonga—etc, so I came up with this.

How about a kind of 'Easy Rider' at sea. I mean we get EMI or some film co., to finance a big ship with 30 people aboard (including crew)—we take 8 track recording equipment with us (mine probably) movie equipment—and we rehearse on the way over—record if we want, play anywhere we fancy— say we film from L.A. to Tahiti, we stop there if we want—maybe have the film developed there—stay a week or as long as we want—collect the film (of course) we’ll probably film wherever we stop (if we want) and edit it on board etc. (Having just finished a movie we made around our albums ‘Imagine’ & ‘Fly’—it’s a beautiful surreal film, very surreal, all music, only about two words spoken in the whole thing! We know we are ready to make a major movie). Anyway it’s just a thought, we’d always stay as near to land as possible, and of course, we’d take doctors etc, in case of any kind of bother. We’d always be able to get to a place where someone could fly off if they’ve had enough. The whole trip could take 3-4-5-6 months, depending how we all felt—all families, children whatever are welcome etc. Please don’t think you have to go alone with the boat trip, to be in the band. I just wanted to let you know everything we’ve been talking about. (I thought we’d really be ready to hit the road after such a healthy restful rehearsal.)

Anyway, there it is, if you want to talk more please call us, or even come over here to N. York. We’re at the St. Regis, here til Nov. 30 at least (753-4500- ext/room 1701) all expenses paid of course! Or write. At least think about it, please don’t be frightened, I understand paranoia, only too well, I think it could only do good for you, to work with people who love and respect you, and that’s from all of us.

Lots of love to you both from, John & Yoko.

Lennon's reference in his greeting to "Eric and" and later to  "you both" and "you and yours" refers to Paula Boyd, 17-year-old sister of Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's wife, with whom Clapton (a friend of Harrison) was involved in a thus far unrequited love affair painful for all concerned. Patty was the someone behind Harrison's Something; Paula subbed for Patty until she learned that the lady behind Clapton's  love-sick plea, Layla, was her sister. That's not the half of it; the entire saga is one of rock's greatest soap operas.

"'Becoming American' won't stop the pain..."

A few years ago I had a marvelous first edition association copy of Arthur Janov's The Primal Scream inscribed in March 1970 - within nine months of the letter under notice - by Lennon to Clapton pass through my hands with similar references, "Eric +" and "you and yours." Paula Boyd was, apparently, She Who Must Remain Nameless. Here, John reached out to his close friend once again to offer support during a time of personal turmoil for Eric. Nine months after the inscription's date Paula got the message and left Clapton..

Clapton played with The Plastic Ono Band in December 1969 during its Live Peace in Toronto performance but did not become a full-time member.

This historic letter from rock n' roll's most progressive voice and towering icon to the greatest guitarist of his generation is a draft. The content of the final version is unknown.

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Images courtesy of Profiles in History, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Yoko Ono Collects Rare Books: The Booktryst Interview.

Paul McCartney's Handwritten Lyrics To "Lovely Rite" Offered At $175,000.
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Autograph In The Rue Morgue: A Tell-Tale Poe Forgery

By Stephen J. Gertz

The signature in question.

Poe used two styles of handwriting, a fluent script in his letters to intimate friends, and a painstakingly legible hand in his formal letters and the manuscripts he prepared for publication. Poe's is the most avidly sought of American literary autographs. Anything in his hand, signed or unsigned, commands an awe-inspiring price (Charles Hamilton, Collecting Autographs and Manuscripts, p. 116).

Hamilton's samples.

It was Pavlov's dog-time when a beautifully rebound first edition copy of Poe's Tales (1845) landed on my desk with a breathtaking slip tipped-in to one of the preliminary blanks.

The slip was addressed, To Col. Richard B. Mason / Holmes Island / Lustrins Calf., and signed, in the lower left corner, From Edgar A. Poe.

Mother of Mercy!

Then I looked closely and my salivary glands withered like grapes into raisins.

The tipped-in slip.

First, the hand that wrote the signature and that which addressed the slip are completely different, beyond those variations noted by Hamilton. The address bears little if any resemblance to samples of Poe's casual or formal penmanship. Poe did not write that address.

Authenticated examples of Poe's signature.
Note informal style at center. Courtesy of TomFolio.

Furthermore, it makes no sense that, if Poe had written the address, he would have used his formal and painstakingly written signature as sender. He would have likely used his informal autograph as seen above at center. Note, too, that, based upon authentic samples, when Poe wrote his formal signature he invariably added a final, usually decorative, underline. That flourish is absent from this formal autograph.

Authentic Poe letter.
Courtesy of Bauman's Rare Books.

But more than the general differences in handwriting, the weird mix of formal and informal styles on the same slip, and the absence of an underscore to the signature, there is a nearly invisible sign that this autograph was obviously monkeyed with. The lower left corner of the slip upon which  the Poe autograph is found has been washed. It is not obvious unless viewed at the proper angle in the right light. When the slip was recently photographed it was lit so that the washing would be apparent.

Detail of signature from above letter.

This copy of Tales was rebound c. 1920s by Curtis Walters of New York. That approximate date of rebinding, when the slip was likely tipped-in, provides a tantalizing possibility about the origin of this forgery. It suggests that it was the work of Martin Coneely, aka Joseph Cosey (1887-?1950).

Joseph Cosey.

At some point during the early 1920s Cosey visited the Library of Congress and stole a pay warrant signed by Benjamin Franklin dated 1786. Shortly thereafter and broke, he attempted to sell the document to a dealer. The dealer rejected it, claiming it to be a fake. Indignant, Cosey went home and carefully, after studying examples, forged Abraham Lincoln's signature and presented it to the same dealer, who bought it. Cosey felt triumphant.

Franklin, Lincoln, and Poe became his favorite subjects; Cosey had a deep affection for Poe's work. Cosey was good, very, very good. He used period ink, paper, and writing instruments. It is known that he used modern chemicals to treat paper when necessary.

I strongly suspect that this example of Poe's signature to this addressed slip was the work of Cosey, perhaps an early exercise at a time when Poe autograph and manuscript material was hot (it still is),  he was beginning to experiment with paper-treating chemicals, and curious about what he could get away with. 

Part of Cosey's genius was that when he offered his work he never claimed it to be authentic; he left it up to the buyer to decide. If the work was subsequently judged to be faked he was in the clear; it was the dealers who erred in their evaluation. I imagine that he offered this early exercise as a test to see if it would fly. It, apparently, did. At the time the unknown duped buyer (perhaps Walters, or the bookseller or collector who commissioned the binding) purchased it autograph and manuscript forensics were in adolescence, few dealers had deep experience with Poe autograph material (there was not much genuine material recorded at the time - nor now), and the quest for Poe material likely blinded those involved to err on the side of hope.

Authenticated Poe addressed envelope.

All forgers have a "tell,' something that gives them away. For Cosey, it was the simple fact that signatures evolve over time. He was appending Franklin autographs forged from samples from early in Franklin's life to documents written later when Franklin's handwriting had deteriorated. His Lincoln forgeries were revealed by "A. Lincoln" being on the same plane; genuine Lincoln signatures have "Lincoln" slightly raised above the initial "A."

Authentic Poe manuscript sample.Courtesy of Cornell University.

In the hierarchy of autograph material an author's direct signature to one their books is valued higher than a tipped-in envelope with autograph. A tipped-in "clipped" signature (the autograph excised from an original document) is valued even lower. If this tipped-in slip with autograph had been authentic it would have likely added at least $5,000 to the book. As it turns out, because of his notoriety, skill, and chutzpah, Coesy forgeries have become collectible in their own right. There remain samples not yet firmly identified, and this may be one of them.

If it can be firmly attributed to Cosey it may add $500-$750 to the book's market value.

At this point, however, what we have is a very interesting and lovely first edition of Poe's Tales with an obviously fake autograph, one that may be significant as an early example in the development of a notorious master forger.

It's certainly not the story I hoped for when I first laid eyes upon this copy of Poe's Tales. But it's still a pretty good one, a latter-day Poe tale of mystery and imagination.

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The Most Pirated Novel of the 20th Century

by Stephen J. Gertz

"O, so you've got a copy of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover,'
exclaimed Bob and Pearl, and they proceeded to make themselves
perfectly at home in a strange house. Their hostess has about given up
thoughts of a bridge game."

From a cartoon pasted into a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover
(Florence: Privately Printed [New York: Samuel Roth, 1928,
the foremost pirated edition]). Special Collections, Morris Library,
Southern Illinois University.

In 1928, when you write a novel with sexual frankness and unprintable words it will be considered legally obscene and not be afforded copyright protection. You, the author, know that. No one in your home nation will print and publish it without cuts to the text so you have it printed and published n Italy, where printers are unlikely to be able to read your scandalous English prose and the publisher is sympathetic to you and your work. 

You have only 1000 numbered and signed copies printed. You know you're going to be ripped-off by other publishers but you put it out there, anyway; the book needed to be written. It needs to be read. 

In 2011, if you're a collector of D.H. Lawrence or rare book dealer and a purported first edition copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover is offered to you, beware. Buccaneers in England and especially the United States clandestinely flooded the market with, according to Jay A. Gertman (A Descriptive Bibliography of Lady Chatterley's Lover, with Essays Toward a Publishing History of the Book), thirty-one unauthorized reprints with enough similarities to send catalogers to Bedlam and collectors to an early grave. 

And that's only the piracies that have been formally accounted for; there remain others as yet recorded by bibliographers. It's a minefield out there, as potentially explosive as Connie and Mellors's illicit affair in the novel. You walk through this one with steel boots and protective cup, otherwise known as reference books, lest you get lost and step on TNT.

D.H. Lawrence.

Once upon a time last week, a finely rebound first edition of Lady Chatterley... landed on my desk. I knew it was on the way. My employer was excited. I was dubious; I'd marched through this brier patch before and had been seriously scratched. This copy looked like a true first, felt like a true first, but on close, painstaking inspection proved to be a false first edition.

The signature was present, copy number and autograph in blue ink as they're supposed to be. The signature was extremely close to many other samples of D.H. Lawrence's that I'd seen over the years. But it was too close, too neat, too perfect. A person signing 1000 books, even if only fifty to hundred a day, will not be signing their name with an ideal hand. More to the point, nobody, when signing their name in cursive script as they've been doing for decades, stops in the middle of their surname before finishing their signature. This signature had a space between the "w" and "r" in "Lawrence" as if the signatory stopped for a bite to eat before completing it. In every other signature sample the "r" flows continuously from the "w." It was a probable but not positive forgery.

The proper leaf measurement for the true first is 8 15/16 x 6 3/8 inches. As the top edge had been gilt and gauffered, the height measurement would obviously be off. But the width measurement? 6 3/16 inches. No good.

The smoking strike three, however, and the absolutely key bibliographical point to the true first edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover, was the text block bulk measurement. The true first's is 20.1 mm of lightweight, smooth white laid paper without watermark. No other edition, authorized or piracy, has their text block measure to that exact width. It is the one fact that can, unequivocally, distinguish a true first edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover from all the pretenders. This copy bulked to 25.7 mm, the exact measurement of two known, if slightly different, pirated editions.

When queried (as in, we want our money back) the dealer who we bought it from told us that they had once managed a used bookshop in a small city in a heartland, U.S.A. state, and that the book was a walk-in offer from around ten years ago. Let me tell you that, while located in middle America and away from New York (where  most clandestine erotica was published), there was no shortage of pirate copies Lady Chatterley's Lover distributed by mail-order to the hinterlands, even though the chances of Post Office seizure were strong.

The odds for  one of the 1000 copies of the true first edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover safely reaching dead-center America were, however, weak; it was originally sold by subscription only and you had to know the author, the publisher (Florentine bookseller Pino Orioli), or someone who did  to order a copy. Once ordered, you prayed that it wouldn't be seized by Customs and, having gotten through, hoped that it wouldn't be subsequently intercepted by the Post Office. While 500 copies were intended for the United States, "most copies were sold in England," according to  Lawrence scholar Michael Squires (as cited by Gertzman, p. 4). If a copy finally made it  to Middletown its owner would not  later be selling it to a used book shop but, rather, to a respected rare book dealer (who, if the collector was not an original subscriber, had originally sold it to him), or another dealer of stature in the trade who would understand what it was and its worth.

It is, however,  a very well-done piracy. It's in letterpress, with European-style quotation marks, and not a photo-offset reprint. At the front, the mulberry paper with black-stamped phoenix that covered the boards is preserved; the shade is darker, however,  than the true first's. It is, as far as I've been able to determine, heretofore unrecorded.

A true first edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover in fine condition is a $20,000 book. This rebound, purported first was offered at $6,000, its rebinding, as with all rare books, negatively affecting the value of the copy. (Two rebound genuine firsts are currently being offered, one at  $8,500, the other at $7,500). Now that the copy is known to be a piracy, its  value will decline to that of a very attractive pirated edition in a collectible binding.

As always caveat emptor. You don't want a copy of,  and Mellors would certainly object to being referred to as, Lady Chatterley's Dubious Lover. Which leads to this post's denouement, a tasty bibliographical tidbit:

Lawrence's original title for Lady Chatterley's Lover was John Thomas and Lady Jane. Booktryst readers from the U.K. will immediately recognize the English slang terms of endearment for the male and female genitalia. At first the novel's subtitle, Lawrence used it as the full title at the suggestion of Juliette Huxley but changed it back to Lady Chatterley's Lover and deleted the racy subtitle at the behest of the British (Secker) and American (Knopf) publishers who ultimately refused to issue an unexpurgated edition under any title.

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LAWRENCE, D.H. Lady Chatterley's Lover. [Florence]: Privately Printed, 1928. First edition, limited to 1000 numbered and signed copies in blue ink. Octavo (8 15/16 x 6 3/8 in). iv, 366, [2] pp, total bulk 20.1 mm. Mulberry paper-covered boards with stamped black phoenix, white paper spine label printed in black, Lady / Chatterley's / Lover / D.H. / Lawrence. Top edge rough trimmed, others untrimmed. Printed by the Tipografia Giuntina, directed by L. Franceschini.

Roberts and Poplawski A42. Gertzman 1.1.a.
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When, in 1959, it was finally openly published in the United States in an unexpurgated edition, it caused a sensation, so much so that even Field and Stream magazine reviewed Lady Chatterley's Lover.
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Sacher-Masoch Complains About Suffering

by Stephen J. Gertz

 

On the sixteenth of February, 1887, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the journalist and author whose  novel, Venus In Furs (1870), provided the first literary documentation of female sexual domination, male subjugation, and the erotic joy of of pain and suffering, wrote a letter to his friend, French novelist Alphonse Daudet.

The year before, in 1886, the first edition of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis appeared. In this classic text on sexual psychopathology, Krafft-Ebing coined the term "masochism" to describe the behavior of those who are sexually aroused by pain and suffering. Sacher-Masoch thus became the first person in history to have a sexual variation named after him while still alive and published in a major book for all to read. 

And you think Facebook is fast and loose with your personal life.

So it is was with great, if unintended, mordant humor that Sacher-Masoch opened this letter to Daudet with the following:

“Still suffering ["toujours souffrant”], I could not come to the opening of Nuima Roumestan but send you my congratulations today...” 

And thus another entry into the Annals of Irony.

That said, if a masochist stubs their toe, it's not pleasant at all; it hurts like hell. It only hurts like heaven if the master or mistress commands the toe be stubbed, then sharply squeezes it afterward for loving emphasis. 

In all probability, Leopold was ill when he wrote this note. But still, if you have an eye for autograph material that  winks and makes your brain smile while appealing to your literary libido items rarely get cooler than this.

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SACHER-MASOCH, Léopold von. Autograph Note, signed (“Sacher-Masoch”), to Alphonse Daudet. One page, in ink, on small blue “télégramme” form, addressed on the verso by Daudet. 12mo, Paris: 16 fevrier 1887.

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Image courtesy of James Cummins Bookseller, who is currently offering this signed autograph letter, with our thanks.

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Woody Allen Books and the High Cost of Irony

by Stephen J. Gertz

If you collect the works of Woody Allen and wish to possess Four Films of Woody Allen (New York: Random House, 1982) a near fine, super-association/presentation copy inscribed to his  now ex-wife, Mia Farrow, must surely be the sweetest, most desirable to own. Its ironic inscription is priceless.

But rare book dealers are not altruists.

Originally sold by Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, June 27, 2010, this copy is now being offered for $7,500 by Biblioctopus.

Only one other signed copy is currently on the market. It, too, is in near fine condition. It is being offered by James Pepper Rare Books for $1,500.

Premium for deeply ironic inscription: $6,000. And worth every penny. Events subsequent to the inscription provide a subtext to it that's a book in itself and could not be more rich, ripe, and, ultimately, poignant. In the absence of an Allen first edition annotated by him this has to be the collectible Woody Allen book.

Image from Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).

It is not necessary to rehash the Allen-Farrow scandal here. Suffice it to say, at some point post-mishegas, Ms. Farrow bid goodbye, good riddance, and vamoose to her  collection of Woody Allen books. They must have seemed like scalpels on the shelf, this particular book with its inscription a stiletto twisting into her gut as the coup de grâce.
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Images courtesy of Biblioctopus, with our thanks.
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Hemingway Letter Recounts Near-Fatal Plane Crash

by Stephen J. Gertz

A signed autograph letter written by Earnest Hemingway in the aftermath of two separate 1954 plane crashes in Uganda, in which he and wife, Mary, were injured while on safari, has come to auction.

The letter is addressed to Kit Figgis, who, with her husband, Larry, assisted the Hemingways in the aftermath of the accidents and contributed to an article about their safari that was published in Look magazine, as Hemingway notes. British citizens who lived in Africa during the 1950s, Larry and Kit Figgis were  parents to noted film director, Mike Figgis, who, though born in England, grew up in Africa.

Here, Hemingway provides a  proud laundry list of his injuries while in recovery. The letter, dated March 17, 1954,  reads in part:

"Dear Kit: 

I must have been pretty punchy when I wrote you the enclosed. Sent it as a curiosity you can always sell it for the children. I'll get you the name of a dealer. What I sorted out to, according to…doctor, very practical type, was: major concussion, rupture one kidney, damage liver, collapse of intestines, Paralysis sphincter, 3/4 lost sight in one eye (left) (never any good anyway), Burns head, Brush fire = burns on lips (light), left hand severe, right forearm ditto, abdomen (light), legs (Light). Am beating all raps OK. But you can't beat lives many…Had cable from Bill Lowe that everything sold and 1st installment in Look April 20th on the newsstands…Kit this trip has been a little rugged. All the effects were delayed. Good thing we did the piece when we did although we could have done it the worst days ever saw…If I haven't paid Major…(there are about 2 blank weeks) give him my permanent address 90 Guaranty Trust Co of N.Y. 4 Place de la Concorde, Paris, France and tell him to bill me there…Please kiss my godson…Love Papa."

Of note is that Hemingway is aware that his letters are collectible - within his lifetime; most unusual - and that he knows a dealer who sells them.

Bidding closes today, January 27, 2011 at 5PM at Nate Sanders Auctions, details here.

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Image courtesy of Nate D. Sanders Auctions, with our  thanks.
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