FAINLIGHT, Harry. Sussicran. London: Turret Books. 1965.
8vo. Original cream card wrappers with author and title in silver to upper cover; printed on stiff blue paper; pp. [ii], 3-12; fine.
A signed first edition of Harry Fainlight's only 'book' publication to appear during is lifetime. This Sussicran (Narcissus spelled backwards), is Turret Booklet No. 22 of a total printrun of 150 copies
The British-American writer Harry Fainlight (1935-1982) lived in London in 1965 and rose to fame by participating in the celebrated Royal Albert Hall Beatnik poetry slam of 1965, the International Poetry Incarnation, initiated and headed by Allen Ginsberg. Here Fainlight would read the trippy and disturbing epic The Spider, a LSD-induced text, which was interrupted by a Dutch writer, high on Mescaline, shouting 'Love, Love!', an event which disturbed the poet deeply.
Fainlight, a heavy drug user, who purportedly once slept with William S. Boroughs, was described by Allen Ginsberg as 'the most gifted English poet of his generation'. He was befriended by Ted Hughes (who wrote a poem about him in 1983) and Sylvia Plath; his sister was another Beat poet, Ruth Fainlight. In 1964 he contributed to Ed Sanders' The Fuck You and in 1966 he participated in launching the International Times from the basement of Indica Bookshop. Turret Books, a hub for avantgarde poetry, was founded by Bernard Stone, a friend of Alan Silitoe and the cartoonist, book and record cover designer Ralph Steadman.
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