Sex Crimes of the Futcher

London: Printed by The Aquarium, Woburn Walk. 2004.

First edition. 232x155mm. pp. [viii], ii, [2], 235. Green cloth with illustration (by Childish) stamped in black to upper cover. Pictorial dustjacket with same portrait illustration in white, black and brown on upper cover. Endpapers decorated with a repeated sea-horse design. Some marking to dustjacket and a small stain to foot of spine but overall in very good condition and internally it is immaculate. Billy Childish is a genuinely counter-cultural figure. A writer, artist and musician he made his name as part of the Medway Poets, a punk performance poetry group based around Maidstone where he was at art college in the late 1970s. As a painter, he was a founder of the Stuckists and his disturbing style owes much to early twentieth century German Expressionism. His father was a convicted drug smuggler and Childish (who is dyslexic) was sexually abused as a child by a family friend and this trauma forms the point of departure of this dark autobiographical novel.