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The Crisis by Eugene Field
AU$500.00 Read MoreAdd to cartEugene Field; [Colin B. Berckelman]
Athens [ie. Sydney]: The Vaginal Press, 1938.The vulgarity of the sexual slang in this scurrilous, pseudonymously published piece of verse would have been regarded in 1938 Australia as being at the very extremes of obscenity. Written and “hand-printed for subscribers only” by bibliophile Colin Berckelman in an (unsurprisingly) small edition of 25 copies, the publication can now be considered a genuine rarity: 11 of the 25 copies have found their way into public collections. Berckelman’s use of the non-de-plume Eugene Field is almost certainly an allusion to the late nineteenth century American writer of the same name who, aside from producing poetry for young readers, wrote The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac (1896). Berckelman, for reasons that were either genuine or perverse, evidently felt some affinity with Field. “On top, the pumping method; or lying on the side, Or spread upon her billowing bum, a-la the blushing bride, Or stand up, or sitting down, or resting on all four, Whereby the visitor could take his choice of either door, Or dressed, or naked,… every way her genius could invent To catch the silvery substance that tickleth as ’tis spent.”
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Illuminated Adventures
AU$60.00 Read MoreAdd to cartFlloyd Davis; Skeeta Power; Mango Frangipanni; Nina Rae
Mullumbimby: Psychedlia Australis Publishing, 1998.1990s Northern New South Wales Australian psychedelic hippie poetry and art.
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The Place of Love
AU$100.00 Read MoreAdd to cartKarl Shapiro
Melbourne: A Comment Publication, 1942.Love poems by the American poet published while stationed in Australia during WWII. “[B]anned by several Australian bookshops because of its explicit love poetry.” (Patricia Clarke, Literary Sidelights in Wartime Brisbane) CAINS 157. This copy from the collection of Australian artists Geoffrey and Dahl Collings, with their stamp, and with the bookseller’s label of Australian painter Carl Plate’s Notanda Gallery, Plate seemingly not ashamed in the slightest.
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A Finger in the Fishes Mouth
AU$40.00 Read MoreAdd to cartDerek Jarman
London: House Sparrow Press, 2024.A facsimile edition of Derek Jarman’s sole, early, extremely rare poetry book ‘A Finger in the Fishes Mouth’, originally published in 1972. Heavily illustrated from Jarman’s collection of postcards, the book combines text and visual imagery in a way which foreshadows his subsequent style as an artist and filmmaker. With the majority of the first edition having been destroyed by Jarman, this makes available a missing, significant piece of his oeuvre.” (publisher’s blurb)
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Convolvulus and other poems
AU$120.00 Read MoreAdd to cartKenneth Grant
London: Starfire Publishing, 2005.Back to Black, The Gull’s Beak, Poems of Love and The Other Darkness. With drawings by Austin Osman Spare. BOGDAN B3.
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Paradise Lost: A Poem in Twelve Books
AU$150.00 Read MoreAdd to cartJohn Milton; Alastair Fowler
London: The Folio Society, 2003.With a preface by Peter Ackroyd, an introduction by John Wain and illustrations by William Blake. FORD-SMITH 1135. The first printing of this folio edition, being the second edition printing by The Folio Society, the first with Blake’s illustrations.
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Along the Fault Line: Late Slippages and Abrasions
AU$60.00 Read MoreAdd to cartJames Gleeson
Sydney: The Northwood Press, 2005.Limited to 350 copies, the first 100 signed by Gleeson, this being an unsigned copy.
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Le Panier aux Ordures suivi de Quelques Chansons, Ejusdem Farine
AU$550.00 Read MoreAdd to cart[Armand Gouffe]
Canton [Bruxelles]: W. Field et Tching-Kong [Gay & Douce], No date.Belgian clandestine publication of the erotic poems of Armand Gouffe. The erotic title vignette depicts a young lady lifting her skirt to a priest in a kitchen. This copy from the collection of erotophile Gershon Legman, with bibliographical notes in his hand and signed by him. Legman’s note reads as follows: “[Bruxelles: Gay & Douce 1875] Enfer 29; BM. PC. 1769. 1st ed. as : Le Panier aux ordures, par Armand Gouffe et autres. [Paris – London: John Camden Hotten, for Lord Houghton, 1865.]. 36 f., lg 8vo. Hand-drawn facsimile by H.J. Bellars, erotic drawings by Ulm. No copy.* 2nd ed. (first typographical): [title as here,] [Libreville, a a la Society pour la propagation des livres de l’Enfer’ [Bruxelles: Jules Gay], 1866. vi, 154 p. smal 8vo. (106 copies.) BM.PC. 31 g. 4; Coll. G.L. 1957 G. Legman.” The asterisk from above reads, at bottom of page, “except that of Pierre Louys, coll. Bottin, Nice, in 1962].” Laid in also is a folded piece of typescript from Legman noting “SOLD to RP02/2016” (that is, Richard Press, from his widow) and then the explanation of the woodcut engraving at title page, “probably by Gilbert,” “showing a priest kneeling before a woman holding up her skirts before a kitchen fireplace to show her cunt.” 151 pp. And with occasional pencil marginalia translations into English (mostly of titles).
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Chansons Folles
AU$500.00 Read MoreAdd to cart[Gustave Nadaud]
Evreux: Charles Herissey, 1887.Collection of 41 erotic songs with musical score by Gustave Nadaud and published anonymously with a fine frontispiece engraving by Henry Somm. One of 75 numbered copies on Japon (of a total edition of 300). This copy with a two-page signed letter by the author in purple ink dated 29 Avril 1882, written on nice stationery that features the letterhead Rue Charles Laffitte, 63, Neuilly, (Seine); and a two-page song composed on the same stationery in the same purple ink.
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Old Women
AU$500.00 Read MoreAdd to cartFrantisek Halas; Ivan Ruzicka; Robert E. Marx
New York: Vestal, 1966.Old Women by Frantisek Halas, written in Czech, was first published in 1935, and here translated into English by Ivan Rizicka with etchings by Robert Marx. One of 25 signed and numbered copies printed in colour (a further 20 numbered copies in black and white also produced).
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Lucan’s Pharsalia Translated into English Verse by Nicholas Rowe
AU$400.00 Read MoreAdd to cart[Marcus Annaeus Lucanus]; Nicholas Rowe
London: J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1753.English translation of the Latin epic by the Roman poet Lucan, on the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great.
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Of Celebration of Morning: A Polysemiotic Fiction
AU$300.00 Read MoreAdd to cartDick Higgins
New York and West Glover: Printed Editions, 1980.Artist book by Fluxus co-founder and coiner of intermedia Dick Higgins (1938-1998), in which appears a long series of both traditional and experimentally processed photographs of the nude young man, Roger Berard, alongside poems, calligraphy, drawings, I Ching hexagrams. One of 900 unnumbered copies.
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The Holy Mountain: Studies on Upper Altay Oral Poetry
AU$40.00 Read MoreAdd to cartLauri Harvilahti; Zoja S. Kazagaceva
Helskinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2003.The aim of this study is to achieve a synthesis in forming a new overall view of the stylistic-poetic and structural devices used to produce the archaic mythical and epic cultural tradition of the Upper Altay region. Attention is also being paid to the inherent ethnic nature of the Altaian ethnic groups, to cultural influences and to some extent their present cultural identity. FF Communications No. 282 published by the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
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The Maiden’s Death Song & The Great Wedding: Anne Vabarna’s Oral Twin Epic written down by A. O. Vaisanen
AU$80.00 Read MoreAdd to cartLauri Honko; Anneli Honko; Paul Hagu
Helskinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2003.For centuries, the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea have nourished poetic cultures developing oral epic traditions that mostly survived in lays of a few hundred lines but that eventually gave rise to much longer traditional epics. The Maiden’s Death Song & The Great Wedding is a manifestation of a long epic format rare in Baltic-Finnish folk poetry and of two alternative storylines. It is also a masterpiece that serves as a reminder of the poetry of a gifted minority culture that tends to be forgotten. FF Communications No. 281 published by the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
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Oeuvres Libres
AU$650.00 Read MoreAdd to cartPaul Verlaine
Segovie: Pablo de Herlagnez, 1868 [c. 1930].Clandestine 20th century anthology of Verlaine’s Amies, Femmes, Hombres (except the last 4 quatrains of Balanide I), and Sonnet du trou du cul [Sonnet to an Asshole] by Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. With erotic chapter initials and accompanied by 6 erotic etchings by an anonymous artist. Edition of 400 copies, though often found without the suite of plates, here the plates are on thick Holland laid paper and not vellum as described in PIA 1440, DUTEL 2092.
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Ars Amandi. L’Art D’Aimer
AU$1,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartOvide; Pierre Lievre; Andre Lambert
Paris: Le Livre du Bibliophile, G. & R. Briffaut, 1923.The Art of Love by Ovid, a new translation into French by Pierre Lievre and with illustrations by Andre Lambert. One of 404 numbered copies on Arches vellum (from a total edition of 500), this copy for Maurice de Smet de Naeyer, bound in half leather signed Weckesser.
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CONTACT 1, 2, 3 (3 Volumes)
AU$350.00 Read MoreAdd to cartJeff Goldberg
Philadelphia: Red Room Books, 1972.First three issues of the literary journal CONTACT edited by Jeff Goldberg, all published in the space of 5 days in December 1972. These initial issues containing Goldberg’s A Week in Philadelphia, and other writings by Goldberg, Victor Bockris, Andrew Wylie, Marty Watt, and Ken Bluford. CONTACT ran for only 7 issues, however after issue 3 there was a change in editorial direction with the remaining issues largely focusing on an individual writer and running with contributions from a wider pool rather than the focused combined output of these Philadelphians, from their young and heady days trying to make their lives as poets.
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Le Spleen de Paris
AU$1,400.00 Read MoreAdd to cartCharles Baudelaire; L. Lafnet
: Les Bibliophiles Franco-Suisses, 1940 [1941].One of 106 numbered copies reserved for members of the final illustrated book by Luc Lafnet, with 90 etchings each with tissue guard.
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Les Fleurs du Mal
AU$9,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartCharles Baudelaire; Armand Rassenfosse; Henri Noulhac
Paris: Les Cent Bibliophiles, 1899.One of 115 numbered copies of the first, and widely considered the best, illustrated edition of The Flowers of Evil, being the chef d’oeuvre of Belgian artist Armand Rassenfosse, with nearly every page of the text illustrated with Symbolist colour etchings and nude women. This copy from the collection of actor and bibliophile Barry Humphries, with his bookplate; bound in a fine binding signed Noulhac 1918, with multi-rule borders and silk doublures framed with inlaid leather strips and flowers at the corners. Illustrated with a portrait frontispiece, throughout with hundreds of colour illustrations and tailpieces, as well as 6 plates and a page of text with tailpiece outside of the text. Bound at the rear is a Juin 1897 Specimen being the leaf of XX La Geante with an alternative tailpiece illustration and the chapter plate for Les Fleurs du Mal, an etched menu cover for a Les Cent Bibliophiles Dinner for Fleurs du Mal, 6 Mai 1901 by Rassenfosse, as well as 17 additional etchings by Evert van Muyden and other artists.
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The Language of Oysters
AU$250.00 Read MoreAdd to cartRobert Adamson; Juno Gemes
Sydney: Craftsman House, 1997.Photo and poetry book on the lives of the oyster farmers on the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales. This copy inscribed by the photographer, Juno Gemes.