Synopsis
In 1962, a then unknown couple, John (Joe) Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, were tried at Old Street Magistrates Court, London, charged with, ‘larceny, malicious damage and wilful damage’, involving hundreds of Islington Library’s book stock. The pair would receive a six-month custodial sentence for these actions. The reconfigured dust jackets were part of a decade of often shared creative endeavour; the two had written, collaged and entertained themselves with the combined fragments of Arts history and contemporary culture. This small flat their studio and living space, and where they enacted a loving relationship at a time when homosexuality was forbidden by law ‘in public and in private’. Their arrest and trial would be an abrupt curtailment of this private idyll and a turning point in their lives, setting them separately (though never entirely separated) on a path which would lead John to become Joe Orton, one of the fashionable playwrights of sixties London. Halliwell pursued his own creative path with further collage — but did so without fully finding an audience for his artwork to match Orton’s rapid theatrical success. Their deaths at Noel Road five years later in 1967 became the sensationalised end to what had largely been a private, enclosed life together; Orton murdered by Halliwell who then took his own life. Now, fifty years after the trial, Malicious Damage looks closely at the collaged dust jackets still remaining within the archive at Islington Local History Centre and focuses on the early collaborative nature of Orton and Halliwell’s relationship. Using the changing collage that had consumed such a large part of their lives in Noel Road as its frame, Malicious Damage underlines the visual and performative nature of their collaborations, as well as using the process of collage itself to investigate Halliwell and his work in greater detail.
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Malicious Damage: the Defaced Library Books of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton
Seller: Optimon Books, Gravesend, KENT, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. THERE ARE NO TARIFFS OR CUSTOMS DUTIES ON BOOKS. A fascinating book of reminiscences about these two explosive characters and their life in Noel Road, Islington, together with a large collection of images showing their many collages, amendments to book covers, etc. Compiled with the help of the Orton Estate, and supported by Arts Council England and Islington Local History Centre. Kenneth Leith Halliwell (1926�1967) was a British actor, writer and collagist. He was the mentor, boyfriend and murderer of playwright Joe Orton. John Kingsley Orton (1933�1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist.Ilsa Colsell is an artist and writer from Orkney, educated at Glasgow School of Art (1999-2003), Goldsmiths, University of London (2003-2004), and Kingston University (2017-2025), and now resident in London. Her physical and written works navigate amongst the layers of death and collage. Our book is in immaculate condition, its taupe paper-covered boards protected by a double-thick mylar jacket so that the dark blue details on front, spine and back are all clean and bright. Inside pale mauve endpapers are a slight surprise, book-ending a firmly-bound textblock with clean, bright pages and no sign of wear or use. Of particular interest is the folding monochrome image of the room in which the two men lived - the walls decorated within an inch of their lives with collages of artistic images. Seller Inventory # 440974
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Malicious Damage: the Defaced Library Books of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton
Seller: Lost Books, AUSTIN, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hard cover. 186 p. Audience: General/trade. Very good in very good dust jacket. Seller Inventory # Alibris.0007403
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Malicious Damage: the Defaced Library Books of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton
Seller: Fleur Fine Books, Port Neches, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
HARDCOVER. Condition: Used; Very Good. Used; Very Good. 41-A-01 Donlon Books, London, 2013 Hardcover. Flat signed by both Isla Colsell and Philip Hoare. Text is clean and unmarked. Book Condition; Very Good Malicious Damage is an account of one of the most intriguing events in book lore: the campaign by upstart playwrights Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell to steal hundreds of books from London libraries in the 1960s, deface them as an act of criticism (both literary and against the library system itself) and then secretly return them to the stacks for unsuspecting patrons to find. . 0. HARDCOVER. Seller Inventory # 9780957609501
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Malicious Damage: the Defaced Library Books of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton
Seller: GoldBooks, Denver, CO, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # 94C94_38_0957609507