{"title":"Counter-culture","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"bukowski-charles-ham-on-rye-1982-4229","title":"Ham on Rye","description":"\u003cbr\u003eSanta Barbara: Black Sparrow Press. 1982.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSIGNED WITH AN ORIGINAL PAINTING\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eLimited edition number of 67\/100, signed by Bukowski and with an original oil painting by Bukowski on a blank preliminary. 228x150mm. pp. 283 [5]. Half blue cloth, illustrated paper covered boards, protected by original acetate wrapper. In very good condition throughout. The painting is of a human head in profile. Owing something to cubism (in its structure), Mondrian  (in its colour) and Gaudier-Brzeska (in its monumentality), this is a striking work in thickly applied oils. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eHam on Rye\u003c\/em\u003e is widely regarded as among Bukowski's finest works. A semi-autobiographical novel which deals with family and societal dysfunction and the decline of the American dream. \"A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for a presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves\". However redemption and solace can be found, Bukowski assures us, in great literature. A comforting thought. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"BUKOWSKI, Charles","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43429855920319,"sku":"4229","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/20240510_124131_inPixio.jpg?v=1718121287"},{"product_id":"selvon-samuel-the-lonely-londoners-1956-4406","title":"The Lonely Londoners","description":"\u003cbr\u003eLondon: Allan Wingate. 1956.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003e\"the father of black writing\". One of the central works of post-colonial literature \u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst edition. 8vo. 184x120mm. pp. [7], 8-171 [1bl]. Original green cloth with original strikingly illustrated dustjacket. Head and top corners of dustjacket a little chipped and some wear to the jacket. Internally it is a little toned to the edges but overall an excellent copy of this groundbreaking and important book. Rare in commerce, no copies appear in the auction records.\u003cbr\u003e\"If I were to point to a writer who captures the tone...and texture of London when the austere '50s were about to give way to the swinging sixties...for acuity of vision, intellectual rigour and sheer beauty...it would have to be the works of Sam Selvon which would figure pre-eminently\". For Caryl Phillips, Selvon's significance as a writer lies in his creation of a new linguistic style - that of the spoken language of the West Indian London diaspora. This stretching of literary and linguistic boundaries has led Selvon, a Trinidadian who moved to England in 1950, to be called the \"father of black writing\" and there is no doubting his central place in the history of English post-colonial literature. Once an outsider in every sense, his place in the canon is now assured.\u003cbr\u003eBut, as well as capturing the speech of the Caribbean immigrants who came to Britain after the War, Selvon wrote about how they lived, not so much in terms of formal plot-lines but rather in their daily relationships with each other, with the people into whose world they had come, and with the London itself. The novel \"encapsulates the romance and disenchantment of an imagined city that was both magnet and nightmare for its new colonial citizens, a promised land that despite its lure turns out to be an illusion\". (Susheila Nasta, introduction to the Penguin Modern Classics edition).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"SELVON, Samuel","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55124576305529,"sku":"4406","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/P1030577.jpg?v=1748878193"},{"product_id":"digit-the-confessions-of-a-twentieth-century-hobo-1924-4936","title":"The Confessions of a Twentieth Century Hobo","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLondon: Herbert Jenkins. 1924.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst edition. 185x120mm. pp. 192. Illustrated with amusing line drawings. Green cloth blocked in black to upper cover and spine. In the scarce original illustrated dustjacket. Some rubbing to head and foot of spine and fading to edges of upper cover. Dustjacket is chipped and a little torn in places along the top and bottom edge and upper cover has a price label reading \"Offered at 1\/-\". Internally very good with some slight toning. \u003cbr\u003eAn entertaining novel which describes how a young man from Surrey who works his passage across the Atlantic on a coal burner ship and then journeys through America from New York to San Francisco by hopping on and off trains and relying on the kindness of strangers. It is all told with good humour and he manages to do it all with only seventy-five cents in his pocket.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"\"DIGIT\"","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193323430265,"sku":"4936","price":75.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4936_1.jpg?v=1777655190"},{"product_id":"bradbury-robinson-c-j-williams-mix-1971-4894","title":"Williams Mix","description":"\u003cbr\u003eNew York and London: The Olympia Press. [1971].\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003eInscribed and with an introduction by William Burroughs. \"I'd rather read Winnie the Pooh\".\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eOne of only six uncorrected proof copies signed by William Burroughs. 213x175mm. Printed on recto only. ff. xv, 104. Brown wrappers, printed in black. In very good condition throughout. Half title has an inscription \"I'd rather read Winnie the Pooh. Bradbury Robinson\" which has then been crossed out in the manner of a Masson automatic drawing. Both the inscription and the scrawl are by William Burroughs who has signed the dedication leaf. Burroughs wrote the introduction which begins with the observation: \"The old barriers are breaking down and we must now recognise as human anything that humans actually do\". \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eWilliams Mix\u003c\/em\u003e certainly breaks down old barriers. It has a strong claim to being the strangest and most controversial novel of the late twentieth century. Taking its title from John Cage's short piece of experimental electronic music for eight simultaneously played magnetic tapes, \u003cem\u003eWilliams Mix\u003c\/em\u003e is, as Bradbury Robinson, explains in his preface, \"very largely a book of voices…In \u003cem\u003eWilliams Mix\u003c\/em\u003e there is only one person: the different voices are different parts of his mind\". Bradbury Robinson compares the writer to a composer, \"a sound artist\" and the way the voices of his novel jump around, suddenly appear and then fade away mirrors the fragmentary unsettled quality of Cage's work. Aside from aleatory music, Bradbury Robinson's other major influence is psycho-analysis (he is a Kleinian analyst). Of the Freudian \"instinctual conflicts\" and the Kleinian \"moral conflict\" he offers the \"realisation that these structures, these conflicts are verbal. They are voiced\". But Bradbury Robinson's voices are, as he says, \"crying in the wilderness\". \u003cbr\u003eThis wilderness is perhaps best described in William Burroughs's extraordinary introduction to \u003cem\u003eWilliams Mix\u003c\/em\u003e - namely, \"sexual attraction for boys under the age of puberty\". This is the ostensible subject matter of the novel and it is, without doubt, difficult to see past it. But we should try. As Burroughs makes clear, the book is really about the pathetic desire, doomed to failure, to return to one's childhood, one's prepubescence. This \"impasse\", as Burrough's calls it, is the struggle between our past, present and future distilled into an acute psycho-sexual drama. \"The boy kills Bradbury Robinson so he can grow up. Or Bradbury Robinson kills the boy so he will never have to grow up.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eWilliams Mix\u003c\/em\u003e is also about the art of writing and \"the music of language\". These were subjects that preoccupied Bradbury Robinson and Burroughs during their long conversations at Burroughs's London flat in the early 1970s. Bradbury Robinson greatly admired the older man's work, regarding \u003cem\u003eSoft Machine\u003c\/em\u003e as \"more or less, a continuous stream of poetry\". On the face of it, theirs was a strange friendship. At the time, Bradbury Robinson was a young, just-out-of-Cambridge, prep school master with no interest in the druggy, Beaty, pop culture which was beginning to see Burroughs as one of its godfathers. True, both men shared a similar but not entirely overlapping interest in boys but what drew them together and kept them talking was experimental literature. \"Burroughs would pull from his typewriter the page he was currently working on (\u003cem\u003eDutch Schultz\u003c\/em\u003e or \u003cem\u003ePort of Saints\u003c\/em\u003e), hand it to me and say, Musical enough for you, Brad? And we would examine the writing as a musical score.\" \u003cbr\u003eDuring an early meeting, Bradbury Robinson gave Burroughs a copy of his first novel (\u003cem\u003eA Crocodile of Choirboys\u003c\/em\u003e), extracts of which Burroughs had read in draft (when it was called Minor Incidents). Burroughs was impressed – \"You're a writer…those are the exact words Beckett said to me – You're a writer!\". Bradbury Robinson then asked Burroughs to write an introduction to his new novel – \u003cem\u003eWilliams Mix\u003c\/em\u003e. A long and tortuous gestation followed. Burroughs recommended it to The Olympia Press. Olympia, short of money and nervous of the reaction to the \"problematic\" subject matter, turned it down although they did print six proof copies of this extraordinary and beautiful work of avant-garde, musical, prose-poetry.\u003cbr\u003eThe quotes from Burroughs and Bradbury Robinson are taken from https:\/\/www.beatdom.com\/william-s-burroughs-c-j-bradbury-robinson-and-williams-mix\/\u003cbr\u003ewhich provides valuable insight into the relationship between the two men.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"BRADBURY ROBINSON, [C.J.]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193327296889,"sku":"4894","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4894_1.jpg?v=1777655273"},{"product_id":"camus-albert-the-outsider-1946-4902","title":"The Outsider.","description":"Translated from the French by Stuart Gilbert. Introduction by Cyril Connolly.\u003cbr\u003eLondon: Hamish Hamilton. 1946.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst edition in English. 8vo. 185x120mm. pp. [iv], 3-103 [1]. Grey cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Original dustjacket illustrated by Edward Bawden. Bumping to head and foot of spine. Repair to top and bottom edges of dustjacket and two closed tears to top edge and slight chipping to bottom edge of rear of dustjacket but otherwise in very good condition and internally excellent. It is not common in a good jacket. Camus's concise, dense, absurdist novel of alienation first appeared in 1942. Stuart Gilbert's English translation was meant to published with the title \u003cem\u003eThe Stranger\u003c\/em\u003e but, as a Polish novel had recently been translated with this title, Hamish Hamilton changed it to \u003cem\u003eThe Outsider \u003c\/em\u003ewhich captures rather better the psychological darkness of the novel.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"CAMUS, Albert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193329459577,"sku":"4902","price":1250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4902_1.jpg?v=1777655301"},{"product_id":"lindsay-norman-redheap-1960-4896","title":"Redheap","description":"\u003cbr\u003eSydney: Ure Smith. 1960.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst Australian edition, the novel having been banned there for 28 years following its first publication in England in 1930. 8vo. 196x125mm. pp. 318. Red cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Original dustjacket. Slight creasing and chipping to edges of jacket and a mark to the foot of the spine but otherwise in excellent condition. Internally very good with a little toning to the edges. This novel of small town, backwoods life in the Australian state of Victoria set in the 1890s portrays a society constrained by snobbery and tightly controlled social norms. Beneath a carapace of humour Lindsay critiques Australian society which led to the banning of the book there, not the only one of his works so treated. His interest in the erotic pagan power of the extraordinary Australian landscape led to his being dismissed as \"anti-Christian, anti-social and degenerate\". Lindsay was also a keen opponent of what Australians and New Zealanders rather brilliantly call \"wowsers\" - those strict, tiresome moral puritans who frown on such lax behaviour as drinking, smoking and gambling. He'd have been busy now.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"LINDSAY, Norman","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193330475385,"sku":"4896","price":110.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4896_1.jpg?v=1777655412"},{"product_id":"simmons-herbert-man-walking-on-eggshells-1962-4938","title":"Man Walking on Eggshells","description":"\u003cbr\u003eLondon: Methuen \u0026amp; Co Ltd.. 1962.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst UK edition, published the same year as the first printing in America. 200x130mm. pp. [6], 250. Blue cloth, illustrated and lettered on spine. Original illustrated dustjacket. Slight creasing to edges of jacket and light soiling to lower cover but overall very good and internally fine. \u003cbr\u003eSet in the world of the St Louis jazz scene, Man Walking on Eggshells is a clever melding of words and music adopting the speech of Simmons's own African American community and the rhythms and improvisations of jazz.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"SIMMONS, Herbert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193337880953,"sku":"4938","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4938_1.jpg?v=1777655627"},{"product_id":"sullivan-vernon-i-shall-spit-on-your-graves-1948-4814","title":"I shall spit on your graves","description":"with an introduction by Boris Vian.\u003cbr\u003eParis: The Vendôme Press. 1948.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003eA fusion of prime US pulp and French sado-eroticism.\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst edition in English. 193x140mm. pp.201 [1]. Original wrappers. Slight creasing to upper cover and spine, a small tear and some marking and soiling to lower cover and a short tear at foot of spine at joint with lower cover. Some ink underlining in a few places. Internally very good. A nice copy of a rare and scandalous book. \u003cem\u003eI shall spit on your graves\u003c\/em\u003e first appeared in French in 1946. The anti-hero is Lee Anderson, an African-American whose pale complexion allows him to pass as white. After the lynching of his brother, Anderson takes a job in a second-hand bookshop and embarks on a trail of sex with underage girls and ever more gruesome violence. The novel ends with his own lynching. It is a brutal tale, brutally told and has been described as \"A fusion of prime US pulp and French sado-eroticism\". But it was created as a hoax born out of the author's desperation to get published. Vernon Sullivan is the pseudonym of Boris Vian. Earlier novels having been rejected, Vian devised the plan of pretending to be an American writer of hard-boiled fiction. Borrowing descriptions and style from Chandler and Richard Wright, Vian concocted this disturbing novel and then pretended that he was an American forced to leave the USA to avoid censorship. In fact, the French censors sought to ban the book which, as is the way with such things, fuelled sales and publicity and encouraged Vian to write three more \"Vernon Sullivan\" novels. His initial hoax was not discovered until some years after publication. In 1959 the book was made into a film. Vian\/Sullivan disapproved of the adaptation but attended the premiere where he collapsed and died of heart attack. Film noir indeed.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"SULLIVAN, Vernon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193338470777,"sku":"4814","price":950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4814_1.jpg?v=1777655666"}],"url":"https:\/\/voewoodrarebooks.com\/collections\/counter-culture.oembed","provider":"Voewood Rare Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}