bookitty
Philosopher
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2009
- Messages
- 5,732
Fine Books & Collections, a magazine for book collectors has a new article up on The Paris Olympia Press: An Annotated Bibliography.
http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/201007/olympia_press-1.phtml
Books, even saucy banned literature, can be noble. People involved with books - publishers, dealers, collectors, scouts - rarely are. Venerable booksellers have been caught stealing from libraries, collectors have been known to embellish their first editions with forgeries, and anyone who collects G. A. Henty knows about fly-by-night publishers. (To be fair, the rogue Henty books are very charming.)
Against even this backdrop, The Olympia Press and its colorful founder, Maurice Girodias, managed to become the most notorious printing house of the modern age. Girodias, seeing a loophole in the French obscenity laws which allowed for the publication of erotica in English, set out to make his fortune in pornography. Along the way he worked with some of the greatest names in modern lit (Henry Miller, William Burroughs, Validmir Nabakov) and attempted to cheat nearly all of them.
The fascinating article above details how a bibliography comes together, gives a brief background on the Olympia Press and a few unusual glimpses of Maurice Girodias. Even better, it links to the results of the Christie's auction for the author's incredible collection. Well worth a read.
http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/201007/olympia_press-1.phtml
Books, even saucy banned literature, can be noble. People involved with books - publishers, dealers, collectors, scouts - rarely are. Venerable booksellers have been caught stealing from libraries, collectors have been known to embellish their first editions with forgeries, and anyone who collects G. A. Henty knows about fly-by-night publishers. (To be fair, the rogue Henty books are very charming.)
Against even this backdrop, The Olympia Press and its colorful founder, Maurice Girodias, managed to become the most notorious printing house of the modern age. Girodias, seeing a loophole in the French obscenity laws which allowed for the publication of erotica in English, set out to make his fortune in pornography. Along the way he worked with some of the greatest names in modern lit (Henry Miller, William Burroughs, Validmir Nabakov) and attempted to cheat nearly all of them.
The fascinating article above details how a bibliography comes together, gives a brief background on the Olympia Press and a few unusual glimpses of Maurice Girodias. Even better, it links to the results of the Christie's auction for the author's incredible collection. Well worth a read.