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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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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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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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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.
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Narcolepsy
AU$50.00 Read MoreAdd to cartMax Pam; Bob Charles
Sydney: T&G Publishing, 2012.“Narcolepsy radically delivers a process that shakes-up the form of the book to produce the art as book and the book as art. The book is a fully realised graphic vehicle. The ways in which the book operates as a series of closures and openings, also parallels the content of the book and amplifies it as an evocative, mysterious object. Narcolepsy is loaded with the poetics of sex and death realised through an exciting fusion of drawing, painting, text and photography. Narcolepsy is a disturbingly ambiguous novella in pictures and words by Max Pam (photographer) and Bob Charles (writer).” (publisher’s blurb)
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La Ballade de la Geole de Reading
AU$1,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartOscar Wilde; G. Cornelius
Paris: Javal et Bourdeaux, 1927.French edition of Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol illustrated with 15 coloured copper engravings by Jean-Georges Cornelius. One of 225 numbered copies.
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New York Nowhere: Meditations and Celebrations, Neurology Ward, The New York Hospital
AU$6,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartGeoffrey Dutton; John Olsen
Melbourne: The Lytlewode Press, 1998.One of 30 deluxe copies from the total edition of 175 numbered copies signed by John Olsen and Robert Littlewood containing ten original signed etchings by John Olsen. The deluxe issue bound in brown kangaroo leather by Friedhelm Pohlmann also contains a tipped in sheet of original manuscript by the poet, ten original photographs of the artist and the poet signed by the publisher, five pieces of typescript correspondence hand signed by the publisher, 2 additional unsigned Olsen etchings, and an envelope containing a CD of Dutton reciting his poem. The recording of the CD made only weeks before Dutton’s death. New York Nowhere was Dutton’s last literary work, reflecting on the poet’s stroke and recovery in a New York hospital. Also included is the original prospectus and The Australian Magazine Dec 12-13, 1998 with the cover story on this work.
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Das Jahr der Seele
AU$100.00 Read MoreAdd to cartStefan George; Ernest Briggs
Brisbane: Ernest Briggs, No date.Autograph transcription of German symbolist poet Stefan George’s 1897 work Das Jahr der Seele [The Year of the Soul] by Australian poet, broadcaster, and critic Ernest Briggs (1905-1967). The complete work has been copied in the original German, though the poem starting ‘Keins wie dein feines ohr’ has only been titled with a blank space left for the poem, and the final 9 poems from ‘Ob schwerer nebel in den waldern hangt’ to end have not been included, presumably only because Briggs ran out of room in the book. Penned during Briggs time at 4BK Brisbane sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s.
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Body Sweats: The Uncensored Writings of Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven
AU$150.00 Read MoreAdd to cartElsa von Freytag-Loringhoven; Irene Gammel; Suzanne Zelazo
Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.The Uncensored Writings of Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven edited by Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. The first major published poetry collection of German-born artist and poet, active in New York from 1913 to 1923.
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Tristan and Isolt: A Study of the Sources of the Romance (2 Volumes)
AU$100.00 Read MoreAdd to cartGertrude Schoepperle Loomis
New York: Burt Franklin, 1963. -
Queen of the North: A Jubilee Ode
AU$100.00 Read MoreAdd to cart[George] Essex Evans; Alek Sass [Alexander Phillip Sass]
Brisbane: H. J. Diddams & Co., 1909.Queensland poetry by George Essex Evans illustrated by Alexander Phillip Sass in a mythological medieval style with numerous nude female figures. Queen of the North: A Jubilee Ode has previously been misattributed as a posthumous publication, Evans having died in November of 1909, however this has been proven incorrect, and is actually the final published work.
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Gasoline & The Vestal Lady on Brattle
AU$100.00 Read MoreAdd to cartGregory Corso
San Francisco: City Lights Books, [2007].The Pocket Poets Series: Number 8. A circa 2007 later printing. This copy signed by the editor, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.