Pictures of the gone world. (Inscribed, with a drawing, by Ferlinghetti for Geoffrey and Ninette Dutton)

San Francisco : City Lights Books, 1969. Fifteenth printing. Series: The Pocket Poets Series, Number one. Square duodecimo (160 x 125 mm), printed yellow and black wrappers, a presentation copy inscribed on the front free-endpaper by the poet in black texta ‘To Nin + Geoffrey at Old Anlaby, March 1972’, with a sketch of a serene Buddha-like countenance (a self-portrait of the poet?) and the poet’s full signature ‘Lawrence Ferlinghetti’; pp [4], 27, [4]; in very good condition.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was one of the most significant figures of the Beat generation of writers. A poet, painter, and socialist activist, he was also co-founder of the legendary City Lights Bookstore and publishing house.

This copy of his Pictures of the gone world – the first book in the City Lights Pocket Poets (first published in August, 1955) – was inscribed by Ferlinghetti for Geoffrey Dutton AO (1922 -1998), doyen of Australian letters, and his wife Ninette Dutton (Trott) OAM (1923-2007), artist, broadcaster and author, during Ferlinghetti’s visit to Australia for the Adelaide Festival of the Arts in 1972, where he appeared with Allen Ginsberg and Andrei Voznesensky in an event billed as Poets in Person. Just a few months earlier, on 1 January 1972, Stolen Apples: poetry by Yevgeny Yevtushenko with English adaptations by James Dickey, Geoffrey Dutton, Lawrence Ferlinghetti et al. had been published by Doubleday, New York.

Note: Old Anlaby, near Kapunda in South Australia, was the Dutton family homestead from 1839 to 1978, when it was sold by Geoffrey and Ninette.

Provenance:

Geoffrey Dutton AO (1922 – 1998), Australian author and historian;

by inheritance to Robin Lucas, formerly Robin Dutton, wife of Geoffrey Dutton from 1985;

acquired from the above.