Big Table 1

Chicago: Big Table Inc, 1959. Slightly leaned, some pale staining to wrappers. 8vo. Original printed wrappers. First edition of this infamous first issue of Big Table – founded after editors Irving Rosenthal and Paul Carroll resigned from The Chicago Review in protest to harsh criticisms of their printing portions of the then-unpublished novel Naked Lunch by William S. Burrough. This first issue of Big Table, founded in the wake of this episode, was impounded by the U.S. Post Office. A court trial resulted in its favor, and the journal continued through another 5 issues. Rosenthal's novel Sheeper is a classic of the era, and one of the great minor novels of American literature. See Clay & Phillips, A Secret Location on the Lower East Side, p. 45.