The Trembling Lamb
New York: Phoenix Book Shop, 1959. Octavo, publisher’s stiff photo-illustrated paper wraps.
First and only issue of American poet and editor John Fles’s avant-garde literary magazine, bringing together the work of Antonin Artaud, Carl Solomon, and Amiri Baraka (previously LeRoi Jones). Conceived from the outset as a one-shot anthology of new work, The Trembling Lamb contains "The System of Dante’s Inferno," the first published appearance of a substantial portion of Baraka’s experimental prose work (later issued by Grove in 1965 as The System of Dante’s Hell); Artaud’s incendiary essay "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society," translated by Bernard Frechtman; and work by Carl Solomon, the writer to whom Allen Ginsberg dedicated "Howl." (The title of the mag is believed to reference Ginsberg's early poem “The Trembling of the Lamb,” published the same year.) Some toning and light soiling and edgewear to wraps. Very good. Item #13306
$75.00