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26.
Ali's Smile + record.
Brighton, Sussex: Unicorn Books, 1971. First edition. Oblong 8vo. One of 99 copies, bound in light brown buckram and numbered and SIGNED by Burroughs. Illustrated with a drawing of a kris by John Anderson and an engraving of Constantinople from a nineteenth century travel book.
The book was designed and printed by Richard Moseley, who accompanied its publisher, Bill Butler, in his visit to Burroughs in Duke Street, St. James’s to get the edition signed.
Issued together with a 12-inch vinyl record of Burroughs reading the second draft of the text on one side (the book prints the third draft). The unlabeled side B is at 78rpm and “contains what seems to be technical data of the recording process” (Maynard & Miles).
The disc is Near Fine in slightly browned inner sleeve and a plain white card outer jacket (trivial corner wear); the book is Fine in Fine clear glassine dw., as issued. The cardboard mailing carton the two items were originally issued with is not present.
Eric Shoaf, compiler of a Burroughs bibliography, was informed by Richard Cupidi, who worked with Bill Butler, that “There were 99 copies of the book to be issued, but my then-partner left 20 or so LPs on a heater which warped the play out of them. So, some books were sold without the record, and the remaining couple of dozen unsold books were pulped. There were probably less than 50 full sets distributed including a number of which went to libraries.” Cupidi’s claim that Butler pulped copies of the book is unverified and seems unlikely. Shoaf adds that he has “located some 29 copies of the Unicorn edition in libraries, but only two of which have the vinyl recording”.
One of Burroughs’ scarcest limited editions (the only hardcover published by the Unicorn Bookshop), rarely found together with the record (Unicorn’s only vinyl production).