GROGAN, Emmett. Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps. Boston: Little, Brown. 1972. Thick 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s quarter blue cloth over orange boards, lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket designed by Larry Rivers. A very good or better copy overall, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, the contents clean and fine throughout. The dust jacket unclipped ($7.95) and complete, several small nicks and tiny chips to the spine head and tail, corners gently bumped, with a small handful of similarly small closed tears to some edges. Small square toned area to the front panel with tiny abrasion.
A sharp example of the first edition of the author’s most famous work, considered one of the finest and most authentic books about the 1960s underground movement. Grogan had a most difficult life, starting rather unbelievably with a childhood heroine addiction. ‘He's been professional burglar, convict, playboy traveller, film-maker, Soho porn-broker (sic), saboteur, and a US Defense Department certified schizophrenic who deliberately sent himself on a military bazooka rampage’. Grogan founded the Diggers of San Francisco, a radical underground group dedicated to offering free food, clothes, and access to theatre and the arts to the needy citizens of the Haight-Ashbury and city ghettoes, and was a formidable critic of more mainstream counterculture figures, such as Abbie Hoffman. Such was his will to remain anonymous to news outlets, many believed he didn’t actually exist. Though he died from a heroine-induced heart attack aged just 35, his legacy remains largely via this book—both Bob Dylan and Richard Brautigan dedicated works to him. This first American edition precedes the Heinemann British edition by several months.
GROGAN, Emmett. Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps. Boston: Little, Brown. 1972. Thick 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s quarter blue cloth over orange boards, lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket designed by Larry Rivers. A very good or better copy overall, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, the contents clean and fine throughout. The dust jacket unclipped ($7.95) and complete, several small nicks and tiny chips to the spine head and tail, corners gently bumped, with a small handful of similarly small closed tears to some edges. Small square toned area to the front panel with tiny abrasion.
A sharp example of the first edition of the author’s most famous work, considered one of the finest and most authentic books about the 1960s underground movement. Grogan had a most difficult life, starting rather unbelievably with a childhood heroine addiction. ‘He's been professional burglar, convict, playboy traveller, film-maker, Soho porn-broker (sic), saboteur, and a US Defense Department certified schizophrenic who deliberately sent himself on a military bazooka rampage’. Grogan founded the Diggers of San Francisco, a radical underground group dedicated to offering free food, clothes, and access to theatre and the arts to the needy citizens of the Haight-Ashbury and city ghettoes, and was a formidable critic of more mainstream counterculture figures, such as Abbie Hoffman. Such was his will to remain anonymous to news outlets, many believed he didn’t actually exist. Though he died from a heroine-induced heart attack aged just 35, his legacy remains largely via this book—both Bob Dylan and Richard Brautigan dedicated works to him. This first American edition precedes the Heinemann British edition by several months.
