THE SUBTERRANEANS - UNCORRECTED PROOF COPY & FIRST UK EDITION
London: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1960. First U.K. Editions, First Impressions. Item #7212
1. Uncorrected proof copy. Octavo (18.5cm); original beige card wrappers, with titles printed in black on front cover; [8],9-158,[2]pp. Hint of sunning to spine, some trivial external wear, with a tiny stain to front joint, and a tiny diagonal crease to lower right corner of front wrapper; contents clean; Near Fine.
2. Trade edition, one of 5,000 copies. Octavo (19cm); dark red textured paper-covered boards, with titles stamped in gilt on spine; dustjacket; [8],9-158,[2]pp. Faint foxing to text edges and front endpaper, with a small Parisian bookseller's ticket mounted at lower front pastedown, and a contemporary German bookseller's rubber-stamp to front endpaper; Near Fine. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced 10s 6s net), gently spine-sunned, with light wear to extremities, a few tiny tears, and a hint of foxing on verso; Very Good+.
UK edition of Kerouac's third published novel, a thinly-veiled account of his brief romance with Alene Lee (1931-1991), an African American woman he met in Greenwich Village in 1953. At the time, Lee was typing manuscripts for Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs in Ginsberg's Lower East Side apartment. Kerouac moved the setting from New York to San Francisco, and renamed Lee "Mardou Fox," the free-spirited figure who frequents the beatnik bars and jazz clubs of the Bay Area. The book was the basis for Ranald MacDougall's 1960 film adaptation of the same name. Given the increasingly fraught state of race relations at the time, this key Beat Generation heroine was whitewashed out of the picture, and Leslie Caron, a young white French actress, was cast as Mardou Fox in the film, and is pictured on the front panel of the dustjacket. As with all proof copies of Kerouac's early books (excepting The Town and The City), this one is rare – not mentioned by the bibliographer, and not previously seen by us. Charters A3d.
Price: $4,500.00