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23.
CAIN'S BOOK.
NY: Grove Press, Inc., 1960. First edition. 8vo. Black cloth, with titles to spine and upper board in red and silver. Dustwrapper cover photograph by Richard Seaver; author's photo to lower panel by Jane Lougee.
Trocchi's best known work, set in Scotland and New York (based in part on his experiences working on the Hudson River), and a classic of modern drug literature. Wallace Berman published the first excerpt from it in Semina Two (December 1957) during the period Trocchi spent living in Venice Beach, California with his American wife, Lyn Hicks, and it was Hicks who helped assemble his notes for the finished book, which Grove Press editor Richard Seaver paid him for incrementally, chapter by chapter.
Light wear to head and tail of dw. spine panel, with red title lettering slightly faded; short crease to lower flap; not price-clipped (reduced price of $2.95 written in pencil inside front flap); cloth slightly dusty, o/w Near Fine in dw. Notoriously difficult to find in the hardcover edition, especially in nice condition.
