Clark, Tom

The Last Gas Station and Other Stories

ISBN: 0876854560
Santa Barbara, CA, USA: Black Sparrow Press, 1980. First Trade Softcover Edition. Softcover. A volume of short stories by Tom Clark (1941-2018), the brilliant & prolific New York School-&-Beyond poet, editor, biographer, novelist & story writer as here, who epitomizes our category of "The Prolific & Underappreciated." With the title story & 23 other varied tales of satire, dead-pan humor, topicality & his particular interests including baseball. We here offer the first trade softcover edition, first printing, trade-format softcover in wrappers "Printed August 1980 in Santa Barbara & (our hometown) Ann Arbor..." without stated limitation for this trade edition per colophon following text-an exemplary Black Sparrow production. From the collection of Richard Cupidi (b. 1945), our esteemed friend in the UK who managed the fabled Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, England founded by Bill Butler (1934-1977, the famed American-expatriate poet, bookseller & publisher). From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Unicorn proffered & published many outstanding productions by William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard et al., some of which have become the scarcest, all-but-unobtainable Beat-&-Beyond collectibles (see for example our item No.s 8217, 8366). After prevailing against censorious harrassment 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 collectibles of Unicorn & Public House, some of which have become the stuff of myth. Third Mind Books, as with this item, is in the process of reverently curating & incrementally presenting the Butler-Cupidi-Unicorn-Public House Legacy that is in our custodial hands- until it passes to yours. A rich & rewarding, quintessential Clark collectible in its rarest contemporary trade form, with most-distinguished & relevant provenance. See also our many other Clark collectibles & contributions. In relatively fine-to-very-fine condition with light rubbing, faint scratching, occasional spotting & a hint of age-toning to front, back covers & spine; slight wear & a few tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same; mild-to-moderate spotting to edges of text block. Interior fine-to-very-fine with (again) only a hint of age-toning chiefly to blank margins/edges of page leaves; spotting at small blank areas of a few leaves; miniscule bumps at corners of a few leaves. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #8358]

Price: $35.00