SELBY JR., Hubert. Last Exit to Brooklyn. New York: Grove Press. 1964. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s quarter black cloth over red boards, lettered in red to spine, in the dust jacket designed by Roy Kuhlman. A very good or better copy, the cloth clean and bright, gently bumped at corners and tips. The binding tight and square. A few light marks to the textblock edges, with some light stains to the fore-edge of about fifteen pages (98-117pp). The dust jacket unclipped ($5.00) with a few short closed tears to edges, gently rubbed at corners, but a bright and pleasing copy overall.
Selby Jr.’s instantly readable, frenetic and violent first novel set in the underbelly of a poor Brooklyn suburb. Its varied cast of vicious characters—addicts, prostitutes, trans, gangsters, pimps and many more beyond—far exceeds the formally accepted standard, especially in Britain where an obscenity trial prohibited the British publishers, Calder & Boyars, to sell the book in some locations.
SELBY JR., Hubert. Last Exit to Brooklyn. New York: Grove Press. 1964. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s quarter black cloth over red boards, lettered in red to spine, in the dust jacket designed by Roy Kuhlman. A very good or better copy, the cloth clean and bright, gently bumped at corners and tips. The binding tight and square. A few light marks to the textblock edges, with some light stains to the fore-edge of about fifteen pages (98-117pp). The dust jacket unclipped ($5.00) with a few short closed tears to edges, gently rubbed at corners, but a bright and pleasing copy overall.
Selby Jr.’s instantly readable, frenetic and violent first novel set in the underbelly of a poor Brooklyn suburb. Its varied cast of vicious characters—addicts, prostitutes, trans, gangsters, pimps and many more beyond—far exceeds the formally accepted standard, especially in Britain where an obscenity trial prohibited the British publishers, Calder & Boyars, to sell the book in some locations.
