New York, NY: New Directions, 1981. First Edition. Softcover. “‘I want to be anonymous,’ Bob Kaufman said one rainy night in a San Francisco saloon. I had sought out the reclusive and uncommunicative poet for nearly a year before he appeared suddenly in a café and took me by the arm to a deserted Chinatown bar. Alone together, his pronouncements were extreme and final. ‘I don’t know how you get..... More

Berkeley, CA: Paperback Editions Limited, 1957. First Printing. Softcover. "This exciting second issue of NEW EDITIONS features....A romantic rhapsody of boyhood by Jack Kerouac, author of a novel soon to be published by Viking...." (from back cover) An otherwise mostly obscure anthology with a most notable contribution- by Jack Kerouac, Founding Father of the Beat Generation, published earlier during the same year that his "novel soon to be published by..... More

n/p: Zeta Press, 1985. First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. Signed by (presumed) publisher to R.J. Ellis. A collection of miscellaneous writings by Jack Kerouac, Founding Father of the Beat Generation. All eleven "The Last Word" columns Kerouac published during 1958-1961 in Escapade magazine are gathered here chronologically, as well as some of his widely-published & more obscure essays including the classic "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" & a short autobiography-bibliography. This is..... More

New York, NY: Viking (The Penguin Group), 1995. First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Ann Charters. "Written between 1940, when Kerouac was a college freshman, and 1956, immediately before his breathless leap into celebrity with the publication of On the Road, these letters offer invaluable insights into Kerouac's family life, friendships, travels, love affairs, and literary apprenticeship. Dispatches to the real-life models for his fictional pantheon- including Neal and Carolyn Cassady..... More

Milan, Italy: Skira, 2018. First Edition. Hardcover. "Through a body of works previously unpublished in Italy, this book shines a new light on the pictorial and graphic activity of one of the great literary icons of the twentieth century, the American writer Jack Kerouac, father of the Beat Generation. A comparison of his literary and artistic production reveals the labyrinthine creative process that allowed his visionary perception of reality to..... More

Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1912. First Edition. Hardcover. "I have collected in this volume practically all the verses and chapter-headings scattered through my books, with the exception of the Jungle Books and the Just So Stories. In several cases where only a few lines of verse were originally used I have given in full the song, etc., from which they were taken." (author's Preface) A compilation of..... More

St. Petersburg: Three Pines Press, 2019. First Printing. Softcover. This multi-contributor volume on mysticism and meaning was edited by and is the brainchild of Alexander Kohav, Second San Francisco Renaissance-compatriot of poet-publisher-impresario Thomas Rain Crowe (the interview subject of TMB's debut publication, "Starting from San Francisco: The Second San Francisco Renaissance and the Baby Beat Generation" [TMB Item #3071, Softcover, & TMB Item #3075, Hardcover]). In SFSF, Crowe writes of..... More

Cullowhee, NC; Mumbai, India: New Native Press; Akshar Prakashan, 2003; 2005. First Edition; First Edition Thus. Softcovers. First American Edition signed by publisher Thomas Rain Crowe. "From out of India and the Marath language, and through the eyes and ears of translator S.A. Virkar, comes the poetry of one of Asia's finest and most celebrated 20th century writers- to America's shores and the rest of the English-speaking world. Kusumagraj is..... More

Spartanburg, SC: Holocene Press, 1992. Second Edition (First Edition Thus). Softcover. Inscribed & signed (twice) by John Lane to Thomas Rain Crowe. "In the animal light of early morning/ dreams persist but I am quickly/ victim to the world's precision-" ("Waking in the Blue Ridge," first stanza, pg. 11) A collection of poems by John Lane, the acclaimed & prolific South Carolina-native poet, environmentalist & educator. The poems here, as..... More

Cullowhee, NC: New Native Press, 1995. First Edition. Softcover. Signed by author John Lane & Publisher Thomas Rain Crowe. "Antibiotics are burning a hole in my sleep. I am sweeping/ the cave of illness. I dream the dog has used the other/ room to escape my training, and a snake slips into a/ rain puddle shadowed by a single creosote bush." (from "Health Care Plan," pg. 24) A collection of..... More

New York, NY: New Directions Books, 1998. First Softcover Edition. Softcover. A small volume of selected love poems by James Laughlin (1914-1997), the great editor & publisher in the Pantheon of literature with such giants as Barney Rosset & Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Laughlin was a very gifted & impassioned poet, as proven in these selections. First softcover edition, preceded the previous year (1997) by a hardcover edition, published in Laughlin's memory..... More

New York, NY; London, England: Routledge, 2018. First Edition. Hardcover. "Beat literature? Have not the great canonical names long grown familiar? (Allen) Ginsberg, (Jack) Kerouac, (William S.) Burroughs. Likewise the frontline texts, still controversial in some quarters, assume their place in modern American literary history. On the Road serves as Homeric Journey epic. "Howl" amounts to Beat anthem, confessional outcry against materialism and war. Naked Lunch, with its dark satiric..... More

Charlotte, NC: Red Clay Publishers, 1972. First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. The first of only two collections published during the short lifetime of Amon Liner (1940-1976), the North Carolinian true "Poet's Poet" whose name & work live on among kindred poets & aficionados. Divided into three sections, "Auschwitz & Other Artifacts" with ten poems; "Darkside of the Sun" with nineteen poems; & "Boswash" with just that title poem. Liner's style &..... More