Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker
Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting
Ed Sanders Catalogue #1 – June/July 1964
Item Description: Ed Sanders, New York, 1964. Soft cover. Book Condition: Near Fine. No Jacket. Ed Sanders (illustrator). [7] leaves; 28 x 21.7 cm. Side-stapled binding. Pages un-numbered. Mimeographed on one side on typing paper stock. Light age toning at edges. Otherwise, in Near Fine condition with uncreased pages, sharp corners, no writings, scuffs or spots, all staples present and unrusted.
For years there has been talk among book dealers of somebody finally going completely meta and issuing a book catalogue selling nothing but book catalogues. It is an idea long overdue. We here at Bibliographic Bunker Booksellers are offering for sale what just might be one of the crown jewels of such a catalogue: Ed Sanders Catalogue #1. In 1964, Ed Sanders, publisher of Fuck You, a magazine of the arts, needed some loot so he hit up Allen Ginszap for a list of millionaires and decided to get into the bookselling business. Sanders cranked up the trusty mimeo and puked out a series of nine book catalogues under his name and later under the auspices of his bookstore Peace Eye.
The catalogues are important on several levels. First bibliographically. They allow a glimpse into New American Writing, the Mimeo Revolution, and, specifically, Fuck You Press circa the mid-1960s as well as providing insight into the burgeoning collecting culture surrounding these publications. For example, from Catalogue #1, one can find confirmation that C: A Journal of Poetry was instantaneously collectible and a rarity from the get-go. For those attempting a bibliography of Fuck You Press, the catalogues are essential for beginning the process of unraveling the mysterious world of the press’ limited editions and archival material. You will find here several leads that will prove tantalizing a dogged bibliographer. Did the archive surrounding Roosevelt After Inauguration actually exist? Was it sold? What institution or collector bought it? The same holds for the Boiling Sperm Edition of Fuck You. This brings us to another reason why the catalogues are important. They are creative works of Sanders and Fuck You Press in their own right on the level of Fuck You, a magazine of the arts. Sanders brilliantly satirizes the book collecting community feeding off the counterculture underground as well as the uptight and buttoned-down world of bibliography in general. The entries on Ginsberg’s Pond’s Cold Cream and packets of poets’ public hair should be considered classics in this regard.
In order to get your motor running and your hand digging for your credit card, we at Bibliographic Bunker Bookseller provide a pdf of Ed Sanders Catalogue #1 for your perusal. We are of the opinion that collectors will never be satisfied with merely pixels on a screen and will only truly be content with paper on a shelf.
PROVENANCE: The Catalogue comes from the archives (trashcan) of Ralph Ginzburg, publisher of Eros and Fact down through the hands of Jeff Nisbet and onward into the welcoming arms of BigCrux. Thanks to BigCrux for laying at our feet the means for this pdf. For further information on the complete contents of this archive, see Nisbet’s presentation on RealityStudio.
PRICE: SOLD.