First edition thus, first printing, Jack Kerouac's copy, with his estate's ink and blind stamps on the half-title. Genet's controversial work was suppressed in Britain and America, but "the Beats passed around a smuggled translation of the forbidden Miracle of the Rose and declared Genet their pulp poet. His exquisite beauty, his affirmation of betrayal, crime, and homosexuality filled the guts of Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Kerouac" (Smith). This is Volume III of Gallimard's collected works of Genet, which was published between 1951 and 1979. A letter dated 28 December 1952 refers to Kerouac's borrowing of an earlier volume in the series: "Allen - I've been digging your mad little pad and I took the terrible liberty of borrowing The Complete Oeuvres Genet, upon my word I won't lose it and'll return it very soon" (Charters, p. 392). Gallimard's was the first collected edition of Genet. The two novels included in this volume - Querelle de Brest and Pompes Funèbres (1948) - were revised by the publishers to elide the more shocking sections. Nevertheless, this represents the first complete publication of the story of Querelle de Brest, it having first appeared incomplete in 1947. This volume also includes Genet's long poem Le Pêcher du Suquet, first published in 1948. Ann Charters, ed., Jack Kerouac, Selected Letters 1940-1956, 1995; Patti Smith, "Pain and Ink", Details, November 1993, accessible online. Octavo. Original wrappers lettered in red and black. Short splits to joints at spine ends, wrappers creased and soiled, very faint damp stain to fore edge. A very good copy.
