Grove Press Reader 1951-2001 [Paperback]

S. E. Gontarski (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2001

In 1951 Barney Rosset acquired Grove Press and proceeded to build it into one of the most controversial and influential houses of the era, publishing Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, D. H. Lawrence, Octavio Paz, Jorge Luis Borges, the Marquis de Sade, Frantz Fanon, and many others. For nearly three decades, readers sought out and read books because they were Grove books. In celebration of the past half-century, Grove Press is now offering a collection of the seminal writers it has published over the past fifty years. The reader opens with an introductory overview by noted Beckett scholar S. E. Gontarski, which recounts Grove Press's early days as a small upstart house, the battles against censorship, the halcyon years and the less profitable times, the attacks by militant feminists and Cuban emigres, and the merger with Atlantic Monthly Press. The book includes selections of works by authors from William Burroughs to Will Self, Jean Genet to Dennis Cooper, Marguerite Duras to Jeannette Winterson, and Samuel Beckett to Tom Stoppard. There are letters between editors and authors, as well as retrospective essays by Grove's key publishers and editors. Organized chronologically, The Grove Press Reader is both an anthology of excellent writing and a commemoration of a spirit of independent publishing that has flourished for fifty years and will continue to thrive in the new century.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st edition (February 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802137806
• ISBN-13: 978-0802137807
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,121,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A stunning anthology from Grove Press, April 17, 2001

By 

Laura G. Carter "Castlebreaker" (Reidsville, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grove Press Reader 1951-2001 (Paperback)

If it were not for small publishing houses such as Grove Press - and they are getting fewer and fewer all the time in the days of huge monetary advances to often less-than-memorable authors - worthwhile writers would lack an outlet for their talents.

Folks highlighted in this wonderful anthology -including, to name a few, William Burroughs, Henry Miller and playwrite Samuel Becket - are now considered giants of literature, but this wasn't always the case. In the 1950s and 1960s, many areas of America were frighteningly conservative and tightly closed to anything new or experimental in literature. Grove Press was an exception and now, viewed with historical hindsight, one can thank God that they were.

Some entries were banned; others censored when they originally appeared. Some, read now, appear tame and one wonders why the subject matter caused such a fuss. Others, like Burroughs "Naked Lunch", still stir the dark places within those who read it, with its gripping, uncompromising prose and frighteningly realistic and powerful portrayals of realities which today we've grown far too accustomed to reading about - drug addiction, violence or the confusion of living in a world that pressures its inhabitants to conform rather than let loose their own imaginative worlds without fear of reprisal.

"The Grove Press Reader" is an invaluable collection of literature, particularly for those - like me - who may sometimes feel intimidated by these writers. This gives an excellent overall introduction to their works and, as a bonus, boasts an explicit history of the publishing company and the efforts of its owners and staff to ensure that good writing - no matter by whom - was brought to the public.