Beschreibung:

Artist or author: ROBERT FRANK (1924-2019)
Title:
Seminal publisher Barney Rosset's copies of the first French and English editions of Frank's The Americans.
Description:
Together, the American and French first editions of this iconic title, the American edition signed and inscribed by Frank "Barney Rosset / is a good long lasting memory / Thanks" to Barney Rosset, the founder and publisher of Grove Press; they are enclosed in the original owner's custom maroon clamshell box labled with his name and the titles.
The Americans. Introduction by Jack Kerouac. Illustrated with reproductions of Frank's photographs of the American scene. Oblong 4to, gilt-lettered black cloth; with Rosset's signature and personal stamp on the half-title page; the binding is starting; photo-pictorial dust jacket, lightly worn. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY FRANK. New York: Grove Press, Inc., (1959).
Les Américains. Text edited by Alain Bosquet. Cover design by Saul Steinberg. Small oblong 4to, illustrated laminate boards; with Rosset's personal stamp on the front fly paper. Parr/Badger I 247; Auer 375. FIRST FRENCH EDITION. Paris: Robert Delpire, (1958).
Accompanied by a letter signed and dated 2014 by Astrid Rosset, Barney Rosset's wife; to the present owner, documenting the provenance.
Barney Rosset was a provocative publisher, bringing the avant-garde and counterculture to Americans' attention, including founding Grove Press in 1951 and Evergreen Review in 1957. These platforms allowed him to publish writers such as Samuel Beckett, Pablo Neruda, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and many others, as a well as previously "banned" literature, radical political texts, and erotic literature.