Books by Barney Rosset

The Outlaw Bible of American Literature

by Alan Kaufman, Barney Rosset, Neil Ortenberg

The Outlaw Bible of American Literature will serve as a primer for generational revolt and an enduring document of the visionary tradition of authenticity and nonconformity in literature. This exuberant manifesto includes lives of the writers, on-the-scene testimony, seminal underground articles never before collected, photographs, cartoons, drawings, interviews, and, above all, the writings. Beat, Punk, Noir, Prison, Porn, Cyber, Queer, Anarchist, Blue Collar, Pulp, Sci-Fi, Utopian, Mobster, Political—all are represented. The Bible includes fiction, essays, letters, memoirs, journalism, lyrics, diaries, manifestoes, and selections from seminal film scripts, including Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, and Taxi Driver. The editors have brought together an extravagant, eclectic, searing, and unforgettable body of work, showcasing Hustlers, Mavericks, Contrarians, Rockers, Barbarians, Gangsters, Hedonists, Provocateurs, Hipsters, and Revolutionaries—all in one raucous cauldron of rebellion and otherness. This prose companion to the best-selling award-winning Outlaw Bible of American Poetry features selections from Hunter S. Thompson, Exene Cervenka, Patti Smith, Dennis Cooper, Malcolm X, Sonny Barger, Maggie Estep, Lenny Bruce, Henry Miller, R. Crumb, Philip K. Dick, Iceberg Slim, Gil Scott-Heron, Kathy Acker, Jim Carroll, Charles Mingus, Norman Mailer, and many others.

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From the Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader

by Ed Halter, Barney Rosset

In this first collection of film writing from Evergreen Review, the legendary publication's important contributions to film culture are available in a single volume. Featuring such legendary writers as Nat Hentoff, Norman Mailer, Parker Tyler, and Amos Vogel, the book presents writing on the films of Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ousmane Sembene, Andy Warhol, and others and offers incisive essays and interviews from the late 1950s to early 1970s. Articles explore politics, revolution, and the cinema; underground and experimental film, pornography, and censorship; and the rise of independent film against the dominance of Hollywood. A new introductory essay by Ed Halter reveals the important role Evergreen Review and its publisher, Grove Press, played in advancing cinema during this period through innovations in production, distribution, and exhibition.

Editor Ed Halter began working on this book in 2001 with Barney Rosset, using his personal files and interviews with him as initial research.

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Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship

by Barney Rosset

Genet…Beckett…Burroughs…Miller…Ionesco, Oe, Duras. Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. Hubert Selby Jr. and John Rechy. The legendary film I Am Curious (Yellow). The books that assaulted the fort of propriety that was the United States in the 1950s and ’60s, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and The Tropic of Cancer. The Evergreen Review. Victorian “erotica.” The Autobiography of Malcolm X. A bombing, a sit-in, and a near-fistfight with Norman Mailer. The common thread between these disparate elements, a number of which reshaped modern culture, was Barney Rosset.

Rosset was the antidote to the trope of the “gentleman publisher” personified by other pioneering figures of the industry such as Alfred A. Knopf, Bennett Cerf and James Laughlin. If Barney saw a crowd heading one way—he looked the other. If he knew something was forbidden, he regarded it as a plus. Unsurprisingly, financial ruin, along with the highs and lows of critical reception, marked his career. But his unswerving dedication to publishing what he wanted made him one of the most influential publishers ever.

Rosset began work on his autobiography a decade before his death in 2012, and several publishers and a number of editors worked with him on the project. Now, at last, in his own words, we have a portrait of the man who reshaped how we think about language, literature—and sex. Here are the stories behind the filming of Norman Mailer’s Maidstone and Samuel Beckett’s Film; the battles with the US government over Tropic of Cancer and much else; the search for Che’s diaries; his romance with the expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, and more.

At times appalling, more often inspiring, never boring or conventional: this is Barney Rosset, uncensored.

Illustrated with black-and-white photographs; includes index

Copies

No copies available.

Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship

by Barney Rosset

Genet…Beckett…Burroughs…Miller…Ionesco, Oe, Duras. Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. Hubert Selby Jr. and John Rechy. The legendary film I Am Curious (Yellow). The books that assaulted the fort of propriety that was the United States in the 1950s and ’60s, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and The Tropic of Cancer. The Evergreen Review. Victorian “erotica.” The Autobiography of Malcolm X. A bombing, a sit-in, and a near-fistfight with Norman Mailer. The common thread between these disparate elements, a number of which reshaped modern culture, was Barney Rosset.

Rosset was the antidote to the trope of the “gentleman publisher” personified by other pioneering figures of the industry such as Alfred A. Knopf, Bennett Cerf and James Laughlin. If Barney saw a crowd heading one way—he looked the other. If he knew something was forbidden, he regarded it as a plus. Unsurprisingly, financial ruin, along with the highs and lows of critical reception, marked his career. But his unswerving dedication to publishing what he wanted made him one of the most influential publishers ever.

Rosset began work on his autobiography a decade before his death in 2012, and several publishers and a number of editors worked with him on the project. Now, at last, in his own words, we have a portrait of the man who reshaped how we think about language, literature—and sex. Here are the stories behind the filming of Norman Mailer’s Maidstone and Samuel Beckett’s Film; the battles with the US government over Tropic of Cancer and much else; the search for Che’s diaries; his romance with the expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, and more.

At times appalling, more often inspiring, never boring or conventional: this is Barney Rosset, uncensored.

Illustrated with black-and-white photographs; includes index

Copies

No copies available.

Dear Mr. Beckett: Letters from the Publisher: The Samuel Beckett File: Correspondence, Interviews, Photos

by Barney Rosset

Preface by Paul Auster • Foreword by Edward Beckett

Edited by Lois Oppenheim • Curated by Astrid Myers Rosset

“You know, Barney, I think my writing days are over ” Beckett writes in 1954 âwhen most of his output was still ahead of him.ã And later, “Sick of all this old vomit and despair more and more of ever being able to puke again. In a world where writers switch publishers at the first shake of a martini pitcher, our trans-Atlantic communications seemed to float on a sea of tranquility and trust.” – from Dear Mr. Beckett

Through letters, contracts, photos, interviews, speeches, reviews and memorabilia – most of which has never before been made public – a rare personal and professional friendship unfolds between these two oddly shy daredevils; through their embrace, they shifted and turned the tide of literature in America.

Among the many never before published entries:

• Beckett's discussion about acting with his long time director, Alan Schneider, as they huddled with Barney Rosset in his East Hampton quonset hut about their upcoming rehearsal with Buster Keaton.

• Susan Sontag correspondence on her Godot production in Sarajevo.

• The comprehensive Endgame file about the controversial production in Cambridge Mass which proceeded against Beckett's wishes.

• Interviews with Eugene Ionesco and Alain Robbe-Grillet about Beckett and Rosset and the Absurdists.

• Estelle Parsons correspondence with Beckett about the actress's proposal to perform Godot with Shelley Winters on Broadway.

• Comprehensive file on the genesis and development of Beckett's Rockaby with Billie Whitelaw.

• Comprehensive file on Rosset's termination from Grove, the press he founded and championed.

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