Obelisk A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press

by Pearson, Neil; Hollinger, Veronica

• ISBN13: 9781846311017
• ISBN10: 1846311012
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-02-15
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Summary

This remarkable book details the work of one of the most extraordinary publishing enterprises in history. Censor-baiting, provocative, simultaneous publisher of the literary elite and of ‘dirty books', Jack Kahane's Obelisk Press published Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Durrell, D. H. Lawrence, and James Joyce among others. At the same time Kahane subsidised his literary endeavours with cheap erotica and trash fiction from long-forgotten eccentrics such as New York Daily News' Rome correspondent and self-styled ‘Marco Polo of Sex' N. Reynolds Packard. Kahane's business model was simple: if a book was banned in the UK and US it could be profitably published in Paris. Here, for the first time, Neil Pearson has pulled together the incendiary story of Obelisk, including biographies of Kahane and his major and minor authors, and a bibliography of Obelisk books. This beautifully written volume - part cultural history, part reference book - will be required reading for anyone interested in controversial writing, censorship, 1920s Paris, publishing history and authors such as Miller, Joyce and Nin.

Author Biography

Neil Pearson is an acclaimed television, stage, and film actor. 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Key to Reference Works
A Very British Pornographer: The Life of Jack Kahane	p. 1
Bibliography of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press
Items: Books Published by Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press	p. 79
Items: Ephemera of the Obelisk Press	p. 271
Items: The Plays, Novels. Short Fiction and Non-Fiction of Jack Kahane	p. 281
Items: Translations by Jack Kahane	p. 309
Author Biographies	p. 313
Picture Credits	p. 489
Works Consulted	p. 490
Index of Obelisk Authors	p. 493
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.