Various (Emerson Jr., William A.; Didion, Joan; Mayer, Martin; Miller, Arthur; Nixon, Richard; Rosset, Barney; Wills, Garry et al.)

The Saturday Evening Post, January 25, 1969 (242nd Year, No. 2)

New York, NY, USA: The Saturday Evening Post Company, 1969. First Printing. Stapled Wrappers. This early 1969 number of the venerable, quintessentially American "middlebrow" magazine then-chiefly edited by William A. Emerson Jr. (1923-2009) features a cover article by Martin Mayer (1928-2019), the once-popular & prolific non-fiction author. Entitled "How to Publish 'Dirty' Books for Fun and Profit," this is a profile of Barney Rosset (1922-2012), the Great American Publisher whose Grove Press & Evergreen imprints are recognized & revered by this writer & Third Minds everywhere. In his Grove volumes & Evergreen Review journal, Rosset beautifully & bravely published the classic works of William S. Burroughs, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, Hubert Selby Jr. et al. The tone of the article, beginning with the cover showing a cartoon of a seemingly conservative Rosset emerging from a sewer surrounded by Grove & Evergreen publications (many of which are to be found among our offerings), is scandal-mongering & not particularly respectful of Rosset's since-settled key role in bringing some of the most important & influential twentieth-century literature to the attention of American readers, as exemplified in this sentence that begins the first full paragraph on pg. 34: "Grove first came to prominence before the public and the booksellers in 1959, with the publication of the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover, and the house is probably best known for the indiscriminate mess of Henry Miller, Victorian wet dreams, Genet, Story of O, and the scatalogical Burroughs, Frank Harris and Marquis de Sade that appear under its imprints- plus the avant-garde poetry, the wide variety of short fiction, the op art and hot photography and sado-masochistic comic strips that make up the monthly magazine Evergreen Review." Mayer does provide some interesting biographical information, & the article is interspersed with captioned color & black-&-white photographs showing Rosset & Co. (including Norman Mailer) at the height of his legendary career. (front cover, pgs. 32-35, 72-75) Also in this issue: "The Revolution Game" about campus unrest by the now-iconic Joan Didion (1934-2021); a bizarre essay by the canonical playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005) on his frightening encounter with mobster Lucky Luciano; "The Enigma of Richard Nixon," a preliminary assessment of the newly minted American Presidential administration by Garry Wills (b. 1934), the acclaimed political journalist & historian; & more. With many delightfully exemplary contemporary ads for cigarettes ("Winston tastes good...like a cigarette should!"), booze, cars, clothing, charmingly now-antiquated reel-to-reel tapes & film projectors etc. From the collection of Laurence Goldstein (1943-2023), a renowned American poet, film critic, author, editor & educator here at the University of Michigan. A fascinating time-capsule collectible relic of particular interest to Grove-Evergreen collectors as a lesson from our current perspective, with distinguished provenance. In relatively quite near-fine condition with mild-to-moderate rubbing, mostly faint scratching, creasing, waving & light age-toning to front, back covers & stapled spine; slight wear & some tiny bumps, creases & occasional tiny chips with minimal loss of paper to edges & corners of same; part of original subscription-mailing sticker affixed near lower right corner of front cover; mild-to-moderate rubbing, age-toning to edges of text block. Interior (again relatively) near-fine with light age-toning, occasional rubbing & light staining to inner covers & page leaves; tiny bumps, creases at corners & edges of leaves; very small, closed vertical tear from lower right edge of a few leaves. Near Fine. [Item #8093]

Price: $30.00