Bob Dylan's Legendary Tarantula Proofs Bite At $10,000

by Stephen J. Gertz

A copy of the pre-production uncorrected galley proofs of Bob Dylan's first book, Tarantula, has come to market. Spiral-bound in the original salmon-colored wrappers, it is being offered by Biblioctopus of Century City, California. The asking price is $10,000.

Why the hefty price tag? Tarantula was published in 1971. These proofs - of which only "a few copies" were produced, according to publisher Macmillan's press release - are dated 3 July, 1966 ("376") with "pub. date: Aug 1966 Price: $3.95 (tent.)" in holograph ink at the top of the front cover. In short, the proofs were printed five years before the book was actually published.

What happened?

Dylan's motorcycle accident happened.

Publication plans were in motion when Dylan had his fateful accident on July 29, 1966. Hospitalization and recovery surely distracted him but Dylan was never really committed to this collection of prose-poetry to begin with. 

"Things were happening wildly in that period," Dylan recalled to an interviewer in 2001. "I never had any intention of writing a book. I had a manager [Albert Grossman] who was asked: he writes all those songs, what else does he write? Maybe he writes books. And he must have replied: obviously, sure he writes books, in fact we're just about to publish one. I think it was on that occassion that he made the deal and then I had to write the book. He often did things like that."

Further movement on the book ground to a halt. 

Except from bookleggers, one of whom was in possession of a stolen copy of these proofs, photocopied it, and printed and published the result. Subsequent pirated editions (over a dozen) followed, each based upon third or later generation photocopies of that first pirated edition of these proofs.

First authorized edition, NY: Macmillan, 1971.

Here, then, is the fabled, earliest and scarcest of all editions of Tarantula in print, one of perhaps only 3-5 copies produced, eleven inches in height, seventy-eight pages in length, and $10,000 in cost.

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here lies bob dylan
demolished by Vienna politeness -
which will now claim to have invented him
the cool people can
now write Fugues about him
& Cupid can now kick over his kerosene lamp -
bob dylan - filled by a discarded Oedipus
who turned
around
to investigate a ghost
& discovered that
the ghost too
was more
than one person

(From Tarantula, ©Bob Dylan).
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View some of the Tarantula piracies here.

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Images courtesy of Biblioctopus, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Greetings From Bob Dylan On Highway 51.
 
Very Early Bob Dylan Song Manuscripts Surface.
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Greetings From Bob Dylan On Highway 51, $12,500

by Stephen J. Gertz

A one-page, 8 1/2 x 6 inch autograph manuscript in black Flair pen by Bob Dylan from 1973 has come to market. Any Dylan material that finds its way into commerce is precious and highly desirable, and this piece, possessing a typically enigmatic, absurdist and surreal inscription and drawing, is no exception. Offered by Rulon-Miller Books, the asking price is $12,500.

The inscription to an unknown party reads: Proud of You. You never sniffed drainpipes but you have a good grasp of the Alphabet - Highway 51 is not your road. Bob Dylan 1973. To the left of his signature Dylan has drawn the rear end of an automobile with gross tailpipe trumpeting exhaust.

Those familiar with Highway 61 Revisited, the song from Dylan's sixth album of the same name released in August 1965, may be unfamiliar with Highway 51, Highway 61's sister road. Highway 51 appeared on Dylan's first album, Bob Dylan, released on March 19, 1962.

Highway 51 runs right by my baby's door
Highway 51 runs right by my baby's door
But won't get the girl I'm loving
Won't go down Highway 51 no more

Well, I know that highway like I know my hand
Yes, I know that highway like I know the back of my hand
Running from up Wisconsin way down to no man's land

Well, if I should die 'fore my time should come
And if I should die 'fore my time should come
Won't you bury my body out on Highway 51?

Highway 51 runs right by my baby's door
I said, "Highway 51 runs right by my baby's door"
But won't get the girl I'm loving
Won't go down Highway 51 no more 

Copyright 1962 © Bob Dylan

Highway 51 is strange. Highway 61 is stranger, a malignant ribbon of asphalt that runs through purgatory straight to hell:

Now the rowin' gambler he was very bored
He was tryin' to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61. 

Copyright 1965 © Bob Dylan

Highway 51 is, in contrast, a benign boulevard. Though it's required that you have experience sniffing drainpipes before you hit the on-ramp, it is not necessary that you suck exhaust from a tailpipe as if it were hashish, a standard activity on Highway 61 and key survival skill on the way to Hades. Highway 51 is merely where love escapes to who knows where and leaves hearts behind as roadkill. Knowing the alphabet is a disadvantage; love spells trouble.

The difference between the two roads is the difference between the blues and psychosis. You are advised to avoid both. On the road with Bob Dylan makes On the Road with Jack Kerouac seem, in contrast, like placid motor down a country lane with flower petals strewn in advance of your car.

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Image courtesy of Rulon-Miller Books, with our thanks.
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If Classic Rock Albums Were Books

by Stephen J. Gertz

"Fast-paced 1958 thriller: a jilted train driver hijacks
his New York subway train to exact revenge upon his love
rival, only to threaten the life of his ex-lover.
The last 30 pages are missing. Don’t know if she survives."

Last year, Christophe Gowans, a British graphic designer who has worked as art director at Blitz, Hybrid, Esquire, Modern Painters, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, and Stella, created The Record Books, a series of faux volumes based upon great, best-selling record albums. Booktryst is pleased to present a sampler. The blurbs are his own.

"Thorough and clear children’s reference book concerning
all things equine. Sadly, many of the illustrations
within have been disfigured with juvenile amendments
and additions, in biro."

"Gruesome schlock from the prolific Jackson. In this
relentless stalkerfest, private eye Dwight Blackman
takes on the ‘Shamone’ Killer for the 3rd time.
Will the psycho slip through the dick’s fingers yet again?
Yes."

"When a form of acid rain, caused by a comet plowing
into Uranus, appears to stunt the growth of every
living thing on Earth, mankind’s very existence is
on a knife edge. When a group of pygmies realize
that the peach is the only plant unaffected, they
found a new society, with the peach stone as its currency."

"Charismatic Harvard whizkid Hendrix’s self-help bible.
A spin-off from his phenomenally successful TV reality show,
’The Experience.’"

"A rags to glory autobiography by Bruce Reginald Grayson
Springsteen. The story of his rise from squalor to victory
in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics is…
well, it’s a pretty dull book."

"War comic. Part of a very long series, an epic really,
recounting the journey of three boys from early
conscription to their various fates. Heroic, tragic,
moving. This one is covered in puerile sexual additions
in blue biro, though."

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All images courtesy of Christopher Gowans, with our thanks.

Images are available as prints and postcards here.
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Very Early Bob Dylan Song Manuscripts Surface

by Stephen J. Gertz

Little Buddy (recto).
Hertzl Camp (Webster, WI), 1957.

Two scarce and very early Bob Dylan manuscripts of song lyrics have come to market.

Little Buddy, written for his summer camp's newspaper, the Hertzl Herald, in 1957 while Dylan, aged sixteen, was attending Hertzl Camp in Webster, Wisconsin, is the story of a boy and his dog. Buddy, alas, comes to a tragic end. The manuscript is signed, "Bobby Zimmerman."

Little Buddy (verso).

Little Buddy

Broken hearted and so sad
Big blue eyes all covered with tears
Was a picture of sorrow to see

Kneeling close to the side
Of his pal and only pride
A little lad, these words he told to me

He was such a lovely doggy
And to me he was such fun
But today as we played by the way

A drunken man got mad at him
Because he barked in joy
He beat him and he's dying here today

Will you call the doctor please
And tell him if he comes right now
He'll save my precious doggy here he lay

Then he left the fluffy head
But his little dog was dead
Just a shiver and he slowly passed away

He didn't know his dog had died
So I told him as he cried
Come with me son we'll get that doctor right away

But when I returned
He had his little pal upon his knee
And the teardrops, they were blinding his big blue eyes

Your [sic] too late sir my doggy's dead
And no one can save him now
But I'll meet my precious buddy up in the sky

By a tiny narrow grave
Where the willows sadly wave
Are the words so clear you're sure to find

Little Buddy Rest In Peace
God Will Watch You Thru The Years
Cause I Told You In My Dreams That You
Were Mine

Bobby
Zimmerman

As it turns out, however, the lyrics are not Bob Dylan's. Little Buddy was a slightly revised version of a song originally written by Canadian-born country-western star, Hank Snow, and first recorded by him in 1948 for the Canadian Bluebird label. The important thing to take from this is not that Dylan plagiarized but, rather, that teen-aged Bob Dylan was listening to country music and confounding expectations long before he was officially confounding expectations. Hell, Stanard Ridgway's Don't Box Me In (1983) could be his theme song, like Bob Hope's Thanks For the Memories or Jack Benny's Love in Bloom, though I don't think anyone has ever crooned it while in the shower or  housecleaning.

This Dylan manuscript first surfaced at Christie's on June 23, 2009. Estimated to sell for $10,000 - $15,000, the hammer fell at $12,500.

Man on the Street.
[In flight somewhere over America], 1961.

An early, if not the earliest, draft of Man on the Street, one of seventeen songs recorded at Dylan's first recording session, November 20, 1961, but unreleased, and then rerecorded as a demo for his then publisher, Leeds Music, on February 2, 1962, has also come to market. That demo recording remained buried treasure until October 2010, when it was included in  The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 (The Bookleg Series Vol. 9). 

The draft was written in-flight on TWA stationary.

Man in the Street (as recorded)

I'll sing you a song, ain't very long,
'Bout an old man who never done wrong.
How he died nobody can say,
They found him dead in the street one day.

Well, the crowd, they gathered one fine morn,
At the man whose clothes 'n' shoes were torn.
There on the sidewalk he did lay,
They stopped 'n' stared 'n' walked their way.

Well, the p'liceman come and he looked around,
"Get up, old man, or I'm a-takin' you down."
He jabbed him once with his billy club
And the old man then rolled off the curb.

Well, he jabbed him again and loudly said,
"Call the wagon; this man is dead."
The wagon come, they loaded him in,
I never saw the man again.

I've sung you my song, it ain't very long,
'Bout an old man who never done wrong.
How he died no one can say,
They found him dead in the street one day.

Dylan manuscript material is now exceedingly rare and precious. Most of what was available was vacuumed up by collector George Hecksher, who, in the late 1990s, gave them to the Morgan Library as a generous gift.

When Dylan manuscript material has appeared in the past it has been acquired at dear prices: A few scraps of Dylan's student  poetry sold at Christie's, November 22, 2005, for $78,000. On June 23, 2010 the manuscript lyrics for The Times They Are a-Changin' sold at Sotheby's for $422,500.

The Times They Are a-Changin'.
Image courtesy of Sotheby's.

In contrast, these two early items of manuscript Dylaniana are bargains.  Little Buddy is being offered  for $25,000,  Man on the Street, $35,000.

Both are currently offered by Biblioctopus.

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Images courtesy of Biblioctopus, except were noted, with our thanks.
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