Unique motorbike gang collection
THOMPSON, Hunter S. Hell's Angels. A Strange and Terrible Saga. New York: Random House. 1967.
8vo. Original black cloth, embossed in silver with an image of a man riding a motorcycle to upper board; backstrip lettered in red and silver with publisher's device to foot; with dust wrapper featuring the image of a biker to the upper panel; upper edge black, outer edge untrimmed; pp. [xi], 4-278, [2]; a little bruised to spine ends; a near-fine copy, otherwise, in the very good jacket which is creased to top edge.
First edition of this classic work concerning the notorious motorcycle gang on their tours around California.
After a year tracing and personally participating in the movements of the notorious motorcycle gang on their tours of California, this masterpiece in underground reportage was Thompson's first published book and launched Thompson's career as a writer. Though he had by then published numerous articles for various journals and newspapers and was recognized as a journalist, the book was his first true exposure to a national audience.
Reviews of the work were generally very positive and despite a poor performance on the publicity tour by Thompson, who was by his own admission drunk or exhausted for nearly every interview, the book sold relatively well. His account of an infamously riotous and dangerous way of life vividly captures a siginficant moment in American history when the biker lifestyle first found its definition; a significant moment in American history where similar countercultural movements were both simultaneously enthralling and unnerving society.
[sold with:]
ROBERTS, Beverley V. Portraits of American Bikers: Life in the 1960's
Oblong 8vo. Black, Grey and Red front wrapper designed by Tom Roberts; black and white photograph depicting Jim "Flash 1&er" Miteff on rear wrapper; pp. [4], 5-158;
First edition, signed and dated by the author, of this cult classic collection of photographs capturing biker culture in late-1960s America.
Using a Speed Graphics press camera, biker Jim ‘Flash’ Miteff took several hundred photographs of the Outlaws 1%er Motorcycle Club, Detroit Chapter, during his membership from 1965 to 1969. These candid and unscripted images remained in storage for forty years until Miteff’s daughter, Beverly V. Roberts, selected over seventy photographs to create this book.
[and with:]
Hell's Angels Raffle for Dirty Dick's Chopper
Single sheet (215 x 132 mm), printed on one side in red and black; lower right corner with minimal creasing; one tiny tear in top right corner (neither affecting the image).
Printed advertisement, exceedingly rare, for the raffle of Dirty Dick's 1959 Harley, organised by San Francisco Hells Angels.
OCLC locates a single other copy and notes that this was the first publication by the Free Print Shop, started by a co-founder of the Sutter Street Commune and several members of the San Francisco Diggers.
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