Alexander Trocchi: 'Cain's Book', London, John Calder, 1963,...

Hammer

£320

Alexander Trocchi: 'Cain's Book', London, John Calder, 1963, 1st UK edition, signed and inscribed on FFEP, original cloth gilt, dust wrapper (25s price intact).

Controversial novel about heroin addiction by the Scottish beat writer Alexander Trocchi. A roman à clef, it details the life of Joe Necchi, a heroin addict and writer, who is living and working on a scow (cargo boat) on the Hudson River in New York. The book alternates between Necchi/Trocchi's attempts to score and flashbacks to his experiences as a child in Glasgow, and later as a young man in London and Paris. It is also an account of what it means to be a junky and an outsider from society. It describes with an eye for detail the rituals of heroin, the cooking up and the search for a suitable vein, in a visceral way that surpasses even William Burroughs. In April 1964 the UK edition went to trial for obscenity, with six defense witnesses testifying to its literary value. The case is notable in that the court's judgement was the first in the UK to condemn a book for obscenity not for sexual content but for "the lifestyle it advocated." In response to the unfavorable verdict Trocchi held a public burning of his book, with fireworks. In the 1950's Trocchi was a prominent member of the avant garde Paris literary scene, establishing the influential and now highly collectible Merlin magazine, which ran for five years and 11 issues, publishing many of the last great names of Modernism. 'Cain's Book' was his last great work, after which Trocchi lost his powers of productivity and lived the life of a refractory addict. John Calder, the publisher of Cain's Book wrote, "he is … a lost writer … lost because of heroin. I've known many drug addicts, [and] I've known nobody who was able to cope with it
as well as Trocchi, but it killed his talent..."