Inscribed 1963 Dead Language first edition
The First Battle of the Marne.
Small 4to (184 x 174 mm). 14 ff., unsewn. Letterpress on brown paper stock. Original orange printed pictorial wrappers. Front cover reproduces a photograph of automobile and soldiers in First World War German uniforms, with a decorative art nouveau border.
€ 950,00
An inscribed early Dead Language copy: Piero Heliczer’s "The First Battle of the Marne", one of the defining early productions of his small press, survives here in the scarcer orange-wrapper state and with a contemporary authorial presentation dated 1963.
The volume brings together six poems, followed by Anselm Hollo’s note dated November 1962. Seven oblong sheets of brown paper are folded centrally to form a volume of 28 pages.
Heliczer (1937-93) stands at the volatile centre of the New York mimeograph and underground scene of the early 1960s, and this publication belongs to the brief, visually ambitious moment in which Dead Language press issued some of the most memorable objects of that milieu. This copy is additionally distinguished by its ballpoint inscription by Heliczer himself to his wife Kate, dated on Bastille Day 1963, the 174th anniversary of the French Revolution.
From a French private collection of counter-cultural prints.
Minor soiling and wear, but in excellent condition. A contemporary newspaper clipping showing Heliczer in Andy Warhol's "Couch" is loosely inserted.
