The Naked Lunch.
Paris: The Olympia Press, 1959.
8vo. Original publisher's stiff green wrappers, without the illustrated dust-jacket. A near fine copy with sharp corners and clean pages; moderate spotting to top text block edge and a small, faint stain on the lower wrapper.
§ First edition, first printing with original price "Francs 1.500" and "Not to be sold in U.S.A. or U.K." on the lower wrapper. Published in Paris as number 76 of the Olympia Press "Traveller's Companion" series, infamous then and renowned now for publishing erotic and avant-garde fiction that other English-language publishers could not touch. A defining novel of the Beat generation, the experimental structure and explicit descriptions of drug addiction and sadomasochism divided critics and outraged U.S. censors. The critic Richard Kostelanetz captured its grotesque greatness when he placed it "among the most horrifying and terrible books ever written", and "perhaps among the greatest literary works of our time." Item #126221
Price: $625.00