Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1 Viewer)

[bospress.net]

Hi,
My HB 1st, Library binding copy of Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame arrived today. This is one of only 120 sewn copies in cloth. This was the lone item that I won at the PBA Groff auction. I paid $195 for it, including buyers premium.

I have been waiting for this book for over 8 years. Very, very hard to find. Most copies were sold to libraries and they do not show up often. I heard that Montfort took 20 years to locate a copy.

I am a sick, compulsive bastard....

Bill

 

[HenryChinaski]

YOU LUCKY, LUCKY GUY.
<3 I'm envious.

 

[Bukfan]

Congrats, Bill! Eight years is a long time to wait. I wonder what the price would have been if it weren't a library copy. Hardly affordable for most of us, I guess...

 

[jordan]

i found this in an old thread:

Rare as a real word has all but lost meaning. 750 copies of a first edition cannot really be called RARE. Arundel trying to sell a 27th printing of a black sparrow HB book for $75 seems crazy. It is only rare if you consider an edition of possibly 10,000 copies rare. In the many, many printings that this book has seen, how many copies are out there? Now the first HB trade of this book is rare....

congrats.

 

[bospress.net]

Congrats, Bill! Eight years is a long time to wait. I wonder what the price would have been if it weren't a library copy. Hardly affordable for most of us, I guess...

This book was a strange release from Black Sparrow. There was techincally no trade edition, but there was a library edition, which was, in fact a trade edition, of sorts. This was the first HB Trade edition from BSP and was followed by Factotum. After that, BSP always released Trade editions along with signed, etc (except for the very limited books like Darkness & Ice, Red, Scarlet, etc...), allowing a collector with somwhat limited funds to buy the first HB without spending $750. Before this point, you would have to get a signed to get a true first HB. I'm certainly not against signed editions, but in the early books, that is expensive and I cannot go there.

Also, BSP released this book with two different bindings. One glued and one sewn. Limited to 120 of the sewn and 101 of the glued. A very strange release from this press.

After this library edition, BSP never did another one, to my knowledge.

Bill

p.s. Now I need to find another hole in my collection to obsess about filling....

 

[roni]

wow! congratulations on that bargain, buddy!
You're a lucky guy!

 

[Buk is God]

Didn't want to start a new Thread on this as it's just a quick question, but were some poems in 'Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame' edited? Was just reading the poem 'Love' and it's missing the line "Kiss my cock, my balls".

 

[Purple Stickpin]

There's editing and then there's "editing." Certainly many poems were edited. Are you referring to the version in Vol 13 of the NYQ when you say the line is missing?

 

[mjp]

There are more than a few instances where entire lines have gone missing between the small press version and the Black Sparrow version. Those look to me to be more errors of transcription than editing.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

Considering the subject matter of the missing line, we've unearthed some uncertainty about that, no?

 

[mjp]

Yes. But it's also interesting that Brother Martin left a lot of things like that in, especially when Bukowski was alive.

The "loss" of that particular line certainly could have been an edit. Just pointing out that there are dropped lines here and there. I never made note of them, so I can't point to anything specific.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

I never made note of them...

:aerb:

 

[chronic]

"Play it fuckin' loud." A middle finger for the folkies... I love that.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

One of the all-time great moments in rock and roll. Music in general, for that matter. Life, for that matter.

 

[skiroomalum]

Fucking soul-stirring is what it is. That and the snippet of Love Minus Zero from Don't Look Back always kill me.

 

[GDPR 4124]

And let's not forget Tangled Up in Blue from The Rolling Thunder Revue 1974:


The switch between "he" and "she" in the new haunting lyrics, the almost Felliniesque make up, the sneezing singing, the eyes coming out of the shadow of the hat every now and then, pale blue and staring. Spellbinds me every time.