Tarantula by Bob Dylan - 1971

8vo (20.5x13cm), hardback, prelims + 137pp.


SIgned by the author.
Condition: Very good condition in like dust-jacket, not price-clipped, a little rubbed browned, not creased at edges, not bumped, spotted to top edge, clean tight pages.
Bob Dylan needs little introduction, in October 2016 he became the first musician ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The first and only novel published by Bob Dylan, Tarantula is an experimental, stream-of-consciousness book of prose poetry. Heavily influenced by Beat writers such as Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg, and similar in style to the liner notes which Dylan wrote for his albums of around the same time (such as Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited). Although written in 1966, Dylan's motorcycle accident in that year postponed publication, and it was not properly published (other than in bootleg form) until 1971, by MacMillan in the States and (the copy for sale here) MacGibbon & Kee in UK (this being the first printing of the UK edition). Personal preference, but I think this has the nicer cover of the two, with jacket design by Michael Jarvis and headshot of Dylan (reproduced on front & rear panels) by photographer and filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg (who also shot the cover photo for Blonde on Blonde).