Ray Johnson | A Book About Death

Ray Johnson

A Book About Death

New York City, USA: Self published, 1963-65

26 pp.,  35.5 x 21.5 cm., loose leaves

Edition size unknown

The pages of A Book About Death were offset printed offset by Johnson at the Pernet Printing Company, and mailed out - unbound - to members of his "New York Correspondence School”. He he purposefully did not send every page to any single reader in order to avoid the assemblage of a complete book. 

He numbered the last page 15, with 13 and 14 never being produced. This was possibly out of superstition surrounding the number 13, or as a way to prevent anyone from amassing the completed book. 

Clive Phillpot is considered the leading scholar on the work Johnson. The two corresponded from 1981 to 1994 (Johnson took his own life in January of ’95). Philpot places the sequence of the book as follows: 

1. “Mary Crehan, 4 choked to death…” [3/8/63]

2. “Cigar Bands from the Diane…” [3/15/63]

3. “Aunt Fritzi—What’s This?…” [9/10/63]

4.  “8 Ton Show…Robin Gallery” [10/22/63]

5.  “Andy Warhol” [11/5/63]

6. “Michael Malce…” [3/17/64]

7. “Anne and Bill… The Bad Ara…” [4/17/64]

8. “Zuckerman Harpsichords” [5/8/64]

9. “Cara Men Nda Mara” [7/8/64]

10. “Send 96…A Brick Snake…” [10/1/64]

11. “Cigar Band from the Ami Lowell…” [11/11/64]

12.  “Send 96… Fred Herko…” [12/22/64]

 15. “Boom… Papa R Snake…” [2/19/65]

"If A Book About Death were finished, it would lose much of its meaning as a process rather than a product. A Book About Death, first planned as a whole that could close around itself like the ouroboros on PAGE 1, had to become an open book, indefinite and undecidable. For Ray, a closed book could be like a death, just as dying could be like closing a book. Because Ray wanted death to be an open book, his A Book about Death had to remain incomplete, with pages that would never be read.” 

- Bill Wilson, A Book About A Book About Death