Bowles, Paul

Let It Come Down

London, England: John Lehmann, 1952. First UK Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. The third published work & second novel of Paul Bowles (1910-1999), the canonical American-expatriate author, composer & true Figure of Legend. Bowles, with his equally if differently legendary wife Jane, lived & worked in Tangier for most of his life, beginning when it was a notorious "International Zone" (the very title of the first chapter here), a cauldron of intrigue & decadence (back when that latter term could still be distinguished from "normal" society). Bowles became an elder statesman among the expatriate avant-garde writers who resided or passed through Tangier in its Interzone heyday, & he was a kindred friend-colleague of William S. Burroughs, along with other primary members of the Beat Generation. A spine-tingling classic by the singularly sinister & brilliant Paul Bowles. From the collection of Richard Cupidi (b. 1945), our esteemed mate in the UK who managed the fabled Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, England with Bill Butler (1934-1977, the famed American-expatriate bookseller & publisher). From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Unicorn proffered & published many outstanding productions by WSB, J.G. Ballard et al., some of which have become the scarcest, all-but-unobtainable Beat-&-Beyond collectibles (see an example with our item no. 8217). After prevailing against censorious harassment efforts, Unicorn closed & Butler died in short order. Cupidi went on to found the Public House Bookshop in Brighton, which had a long & successful run but is also now closed, & he still resides there. We have been honored to obtain what Cupidi has termed "The Last Hurrah," all the remaining treasures of Unicorn & Public House, some of which have become the stuff of myth. Hardcover in unclipped dust-jacket: First UK Edition; First Printing. In Good-Near Fine condition with minute-to-moderate rubbing, bumping & some mild fading-browning at/along fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge; volume interior is mostly clean excepting a standard apportionment of age-related artifacts (e.g., minute-to-moderate yellowing, fading, spotting, toning, etc.) to paste-downs & endpapers, & a few (mostly microscopic) exhibits of same appearing, variously throughout; otherwise, clean. Dust-jacket in Fair-Good condition with moderate-to-enunciated shelf-wear, bumping, some bump-creasing, and various manifestations of age-toning (staining; browning; spotting; foxing; etc.), throughout, including at interior, where the artifacts listed here appear more fulsomely; also present are exhibits of mild-to-enunciated chipping which appear, selectively in low-impact clusters; lastly, some mild-to-moderate tearing at select locales, & most are quite petite, excepting the lone, visibly larger tear, ‘half-closed’ and since-flattened, along the top left-hand corner of front cover (see pictures). In closing: while the above application of Third Mind Books’ signature condition-grading method may strike those unfamiliar with our method as unnecessarily exhaustive, we submit that the surgically attentive recounting of each of these blemishes or artifacts is esp. required in cases like this: when the lot, or volume in question, in other words, is similar in format and value to this. Now that we've concluded the condition-grading portion of this curation, we offer all interested parties a simpler alternative. After reading what we said, just look at the pictures; and simply let the pictures speak. Upon doing so, you’ll likely find (as we did) that the copy of /Let It Come Down here offered is more than a recounting of its blemishes infers. The result, for Bowles’ devotees & collectors, is a competitively priced opportunity: a chance to secure a UK First of this seismic, early masterwork. Good-Near Fine / Fair-Good. [Item #8216]

Price: $325.00