Newspaper 1-17 & 2 Unnumbered Supplements
New York: Jack Green, 1964-65. New York: Jack Green, c. 1964. Foolscap, each issue mimeographed from typescript on cheap paper and stapled once at the upper left hand corner. With 2 unnumbered supplements on Wilhelm Reich. Nos. 1-5 with smaller contents sheet at upper staple. Unpaginated with the exception of nos. 6 and 12-14, the latter consecutively numbered through the 3 issues. [14], [14], [16], [14], [12], 35, [16], [12], [24], [32], [6], 1-22, 23-46, 47-76, [16], [18], [16] pp. Collated against other examples of each issue we’ve handled over the years, and to the best of our knowledge complete.
The first 17 issues of the eccentric zine and abiding literary enigma, comprising all issues that were published in the 1960’s. An 18th issue followed in 1979 (fact).
Jack Green is best remembered now for being the world's foremost, and hardest working fan of William Gaddis and The Recognitions, who devoted several other issues of Newspaper to defending the work against critics, as well as a full page ad in the Village Voice. Those issues were republished in '92 by Dalkey Archive, under the title Fire the Bastards.
Jack Green was the pseudonym for Christopher Carlisle Reid, or John Carlisle, or William Gaddis himself, or Thomas Pynchon or Wanda Tinasky, depending on where you get your literary news and whether or not that source was named Tom Hawkins.
Most of the dense text of newspaper that wasn’t concerned with Gaddis was taken up with certain recurring themes - Wilhelm Reich, fascism, sex, the corruption of the literary world, insurance, peyote, and sometimes poetry. Despite solicitations for contributions and even offers of payment in early issues, most of the text was by Green, though there are also appearances by an eccentric array of writers at the outer margins of the literary world at the time, including Sylvia Clayton, Robert Latta, Helen Harrington, Carlota Casas, Simeon Coxe, and Lawrence P. Spingarn.
The 11th issue was devoted to a scathing review of the Greenwich Village Outdoor Art Show, and was issued with two commercial postcards pasted down onto the cover. They are both still present and attached on this copy.
Newspaper was mimeographed on the worst paper possible. This run suffers from the normal toning, marginal chipping, and detached sheets, but most issues are better than normally found. Item #29689
Price: $6,500.00