Various (Burroughs, William S.; Crannach, Henry; Donleavy, J.P.; Durrell, Lawrence; Southern, Terry et al.)

Olympia: A Monthly Review from Paris, No. 1

Paris, France: The Olympia Press, 1962. First Printing. Softcover. Maurice Girodias rebranded his father’s Obelisk Press as the Olympia Press in 1953 as a publisher of avant-garde and provocative literature that otherwise was not welcomed by the English-speaking world. The French didn’t take long to turn on the press’ explicit publications by banning and seizing them just a few years later. Olympia was the first publisher to be willing to print William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, Henry Miller’s trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, and many other famously controversial books. With the goal of sharing controversial and censored material, Olympia printed this first issue of their journal at the end of 1961. Included in this issue is a preview of ten “episodes” of The Soft Machine (1961) by Burroughs, the first of the cut-up Nova Trilogy [Maynard & Miles (C37, pg.117); Shoaf (Section III, No. 29), pg. 128; & Schottlaender (C32, pg. 38 of the new 5.0 Edition)]; a suppressed chapter of J.P. Donleavy’s The Ginger Man (1955); a piece by Henry Crannach about chastity belts (written at a time when chastity was a common theme in French society); a photographic essay by Robert Doisneau about the clochard, known in English as a vagrant or beggar; extracts from Harriet Daimler’s The Woman Thing; and an interview by Terry Southern with Ernest Badhoff in regard to the explosive exhibition at the Rheingeld museum in Hamburg. From the collection of Kevin Ring, editor-publisher of & contributor to Beat Scene magazine & other indispensable productions (many available here), & our good friend in the UK. Softcover Original: First Printing. In relatively good condition with moderate rubbing, spotting to the front, back covers & spine; minor bumping, creasing to the fine edges and corners of same; pageblock shows moderate spotting that affects the edges of the first two pages; binding is compromised near the top, and the first four pages are disconnected from the spine except for the bottom inch and a half; all pages present. Good. [Item #5877]

Price: $45.00