Big Table (Complete run signed by 18 contributors, many multiple times)
Chicago: Big Table, 1959-1960.
A complete run of the Beat literary magazine, founded in response to the suppression for reasons of "obscenity" of The Chicago Review's Winter 1958 issue. These copies have been signed a whopping 33 times by a Who's Who of the contributors and prominent figures associated with the Beat and Black Mountain schools of poetry/lit. From the collection of Joe Lee, who clearly made it his mission to meet the leading lights of the period and get their autographs over a number of years. The first issue is signed by William S. Burroughs (at a lengthy excerpt of his shot across the bow Naked Lunch, poets Robert Creeley and Denise Levertov (on ads at the rear), and folksingers Odetta and Peggy Seeger.
The second issue is signed by Allen Ginsberg (dated 11/84), David Meltzer, Amiri Baraka (known as LeRoi Jones at the time; dated 11/98), artist Jules Feiffer, and poet/publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the rear wrap.
The third issue is signed by poets Ginsberg (dated 6/12/94), Baraka, Creeley, John Ashbery; chronicler of the gay experience John Rechy, Feiffer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Norman Mailer.
The fourth issue signed by comedian Steve Allen on an ad for his album at the front, Ginsberg (dated 6/12/94), Levertov (on her poem "The Rainwalkers"), Creeley, Diane DiPrima, Meltzer, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Ashbery, and Baraka (dated 11/98).
The fifth and final issue signed by Creeley, Ashbery, John Updike, Meltzer, Rechy, and Odetta (dated 3-14 '98). Ted Joans's signature is somewhere in one of these issues too; memory fails which one.
All volumes Very Good or slightly better, typical age toning and some light wear, bindings a little strained. A remarkable collection of signatures of major figures in the Beat movement, the folk scene, and the Black Mountain school, with some up-and-coming novelists like Updike and Mailer thrown in; all of which together with Big Table itself really capture the zeitgeist of the late '50s and early '60s.
Price: $6,500