Big Table 1 – 4 [ Ginsberg : Kaddish , Burroughs : Yage , Artaud ]

Description

The first four issues of the literary magazine Big Table containing Kaddish by Allen Ginsberg and In Quest of Yage and “Ten Episodes from Naked Lunch” by William S Burroughs

 

Rosenthal, Irving. Ed. Big Table Number 2 Summer 1959. Big Table Number 3 Fall 1959. Big Table Number 4 Winter 1960. Big Table Inc. : Chicago. 1959 – 1960.

Created  after the University of Chicago censored the Winter 1959 issue of the Chicago Review, the literary magazine Big Table quickly became central to the Beat movement and the subject of its own controversies. Suppressed by the University upon release, early issues of the magazine, which featured the first published portions of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch in its first Spring 1959 issue, were seized by the US Postal Service on the grounds of obscenity until the actions were protested by the American Civil Liberties Union.

In addition to “Ten Episodes from Naked Lunch” (which predates the Olympia Press publication of the novel by several months), this set of four out of the five issues of Big Table include some of the first appearances of other important writings by Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs: Kaddish and In Quest of Yage, respectively. Kaddish, which takes its name from the Hebrew prayer, was begun in 1956 following the death of Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi, and was published in two parts between issues two and three before being collected by City Lights Books in Kaddish and Other Poems (1961). In Quest of Yage , also in issue two, was later reprinted by City Lights as part of the epistolary drug “novel” The Yage Letters (1963) and focused on William Burroughs search for the elusive ayahuasca – like drug, Yage.

Also includes Burroughs’ All Back Seat Of Dreaming, Ginsberg’s Notes On Young Poets,  Peter Bowles’ Burroughs In Tangier, Her and The Great Chinese Dragon by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as writing from Gregory Corso, Norman Mailer, Robert Creeley, Antonin Artaud, Andre Breton, and Brother Antoninus.

Four issues. 8vo, 152pp + 6ads, 122pp + 1 ad, 119pp + 2 ads, and 131pp + 2 ads respectively. Perfect bound periodical with illustrated wraps. Some toning and spotting with reading creases issue 1. Good condition. Minor edge and hinge wear issue 2 with some spots to wraps. Dogearring with tear bottom fore corner pg. 69. Pages clean. Good condition. Moisture damage with warping to bottom front wrap of issue 3, pencil ‘R’ with some spotting and wear back wrap. Pages clean, some wrinkled along bottom edge. Includes original mail order form.  Good condition. Wraps somewhat soiled with losses to outermost layer of lower back wrap edge.  Pages clean. Includes fold out pg. 64, dogearred at corner, with some corners worn on following pages. Good condition.

 

 

If you liked these issues of Big Table, you might also enjoy this first edition of Allen Ginsberg ‘s Howl .