The Outsider 4/5 -- Pristine Hardcover Copy (1/500) with Ephemera

This is a pristine hardcover copy of The Outsider Vol.2, No. 4/5. All aspects of the book itself are in Fine condition, including the delicate book jacket and the ”sealed-by-hand still life of flora… picked inside a mile of Geronimo's grave near the Border in Apache country fringing the infamous Chiricahua Mts…”

The book also comes with three items included in most copies. First is the order sheet for Outsider 4/5 that is stamped in red “NONE FOR SALE”.  One the rear of the sheet is another order form for Bukowski's Crucifix in a Deathhand and Henry Miller's Order & Chaos Chez Hans Reichel.

The second item is a single sheet measuring “7” x 10” with the title “The Editor’s Bit, & Obit. It describes serious health issues experienced by both Louise and Jon during production of the issue, along with a list of losses from the flood. This copy has chips and creases along the edges and possible toning.

The third item is an article from a local Tucson newspaper article with the headline, “Downpour Swamps Webb Printery”. Tipped into most copies by Webb, it details a flash flood that partially destroyed the Webb’s home and destroyed a significant number of copies of the issue. In a black and white photograph shows Webb hovering over debris in the home.  Both of these items are also in fine condition.

Published in Winter 1968-1969, this was the final issue of one of the most important literary magazines of the 1960s. The Outsider #3 had been published way back in 1963. Between the two issues, Jon Edgar Webb and wife Louise had published two Bukowski books and one Henry Miller book, consuming their time and whatever funds they had available. By this time, they had moved their press, two dogs, and their belongings to Tucson, Arizona, where the final issue was published.

When The Outsider # 3 was going to press, Jon Webb announced that the format for the next issue would change to a book format, which came to be true in The Outsider 4/5. But the format was not the only thing to change. Unlike the previous issues, the Webbs constructed this issue like one of their amazing books, using a variety of paper (color, size, texture, etc). And while the cover and most pages retained the classic format and style of the first three issues, many of the drawings in the issue had a much more hippie feel to them, reflecting the times.

The issue features a photograph of Kenneth Patchen and there is a special a 46- page section titled ‘homage to kenneth patchen”. Part of the reason behind the issue’s delay was a frustrating back-and-forth with Patchen and his wife Miriam about what content would be published, with the couple pulling out multiple times before Webb finally got approval.

Patchen was an American poet and novelist who incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which were compared with those of William Blake and Walt Whitman. He was a central influence on the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat Generation, but Bukowski liked his work none-the-less.

Patchen had a permanent spinal injury 1937 that plagued him for the rest of his life. The condition required multiple surgeries. One surgery in 1959 left him with a slipped disc that disabled him for the remainder of his life. While the front cover photo at first glance looks like the writer is enjoying himself at poolside, he’s actually in his bedroom confined to his bed. He would pass away in 1972.

This issue featured four Bukowski poems, one of which has not been collected in any Bukowski books to date:
Like A Flyswatter
The Last Round
Kaakaa And Other Immolations
Beef Tongue

Kaakaa And Other Immolations would appear in The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills (1969).

Beef Tongue would later appear in The People Look Like Flowers At Last (2007).

Like A Flyswatter would later appear in Storm for the Living and the Dead (2017).

The Last Round would appear in the April 1973 issue of Invisible City, but would never be collected in any books.

Contributors to the Patchen homage include William Everson (as Brother Antoninus), Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, Harold Norse, Bern Porter, Kenneth Rexroth, and others.

Other contributors include Russell Edson, Robert Kelly, Jackson MacLow, Thomas Merton, Charles Plymell, and others.

Box 24 and Case 5