Robert Frank
The Americans
New York City, USA: Grove Press, 1959
180 pp., 7.4 x 8.5", hardcover
Edition size unknown
A provenance copy of the American edition of Robert Frank’s best known book, now sixty-five years old. The title is signed and inscribed by Frank: "Barney Rosset / is a good long lasting memory / Thanks.”
Rosset was Frank’s publisher, the founder of Grove Press in 1951 and Evergreen Review in 1957. He has published works by Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Alex Haley, Henry Miller, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter.
He was one of the first to publish beat poets Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, the latter contributing the forward to this books. The legend has Frank meeting Kerouac shortly after returning to New York in 1947, on the sidewalk outside a party. Frank reportedly showed him the photographs from his travels and Kerouac immediately replied "Sure I can write something about these pictures."
"Robert Frank he sucked a sad poem out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message. You got eyes."
- Jack Kerouac, preface
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