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The Olympia Press / Traveller's Companion Series No. 109 - published in the UK by the New English Library - preceded by true first edition, published under the pseudonym "Frances Lengel" by the Olympia Press in Paris in 1954 as a paperback original (PBO). The New English Library edition follows the text of the first UK edition which was published in hardback by William Heinemann in 1961, and is a more 'literary' version that Trocchi was encouraged to release. ***Very good in the standard green thin card covers, with 'Four Square' and the printed price 8/6 at the top of the front cover. The covers are clean and unmarked, just slightly scuffed around the edges and with some small indentations on the back cover. No tears. The bottom corners of the covers are creased, but there are no reading creases to the spine. Spine tight. Internally also very good with no inscriptions. There is some creasing to the bottom corner of the page block, affecting the pages, where the book has been bumped. Pages clean. No foxing. No dustwrapper as issued. ***180mm x 108mm. 160 pages. ***'Alexander Trocchi was born in Glasgow in 1925. He attended Hillhead High School in the city and Cally House School in Gatehouse of Fleet, having been evacuated there during World War II. After working as a seaman on the Murmansk convoys, he studied English Literature and Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, graduating with second-class honours in 1950. Trocchi obtained a travelling grant that enabled him to relocate to continental Europe. In the early 1950s he lived in Paris and edited the literary magazine Merlin, which published Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Christopher Logue, and Pablo Neruda, amongst others. Although not published in Merlin, American writer Terry Southern, who lived in Paris from 1948-1952, became a close friend of both Trocchi and his colleague Richard Seaver, and the three later co-edited the anthology "Writers In Revolt" (1962). Maurice Girodias published most of Trocchi's novels through Olympia Press, often written under pen names, such as Frances Lengel and Carmencita de las Lunas. Girodias also published "My Life and Loves: Fifth Volume", which purported to be the final volume of the autobiography of Irish-American writer Frank Harris. However, though based on autobiographical material by Harris, the book was heavily edited and rewritten by Trocchi. Girodias subsequently commissioned Trocchi to write erotica along with his friends and Merlin associates Logue, Plimpton and John Stevenson. Under the name Frances Lengel, he churned out numerous pornographic books including the now classic "Helen and Desire" (1954) and a dirty version of his own book "Young Adam" (1954). Trocchi and his friends also published Samuel Beckett's "War and Memory" and Jean Genet's "Thief?s Journal" in English for the first time. Trocchi acquired his lifelong heroin addiction in Paris. He left Paris for the United States and spent time in Taos, New Mexico, before settling in New York City, where he worked on a stone scow on the Hudson River. This time is chronicled in the novel "Cain's Book", which at the time became something of a sensation, being an honest study of heroin addiction, with descriptions of sex and drug use that got it banned in Britain, where the book was the subject of an obscenity trial. In the United States, however, it received favorable reviews. In 1955, he became involved with the the Lettrist International and then the Situationist International.' (Wiki) ***First UK paperback edition of Alexander Trocchi's novel "Young Adam", published as No. 109 in the Olympia Press 'Traveller's Companion' series. Quite an uncommon book in this edition. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.
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