Hilary Gerrard Collection of Burroughs and the Long Sixties Goes on Sale

Shapero Rare Books is selling a major collection of ephemera from The Long 60s (1955-1975) assembled by Hilary Gerrard who was Ringo Starr's friend, financial advisor and business manager.

Gerrard (1933-2023) was however a prolific collector of posters, festival tickets, leaflets, and magazines from the period. Highlights include:

• an extensive collection of William S. Burroughs' books and periodical contributions
• material relating to various Civil Rights Movements and Black Identity including material documenting the origins of the Black Panther Party, and 302 issues of the Black Panther Party Community News Service newspaper
• material covering the youth movement internationally relating to Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Weather Underground, and the Yippies
• underground press and periodicals 

The collection contains Burroughs' two rarest items, one of only 10 copies of Time, published in 1965 in New York by “C” Press (signed by the author and artist Brion Gysin with an original drawing and page of the original 
manuscript. The collection also includes the rare, first edition of Health Bulletin: APO-33, A Metabolic Regulator, published in New York by Ed Sanders’ Fuck You Press (1965).

Also included is Brion Gysin’s manuscript notebook detailing the period between 1958 and 1961 when he was living in The Beat Hotel in Paris with William Burroughs and developing his cut-up technique, permutated poems, calligraphy paintings, and Dream Machine. It is unpublished and entirely previously unknown.

Among the press and periodicals materials is a complete set of Semina (1955-1964), Wallace Berman’s assemblage publication comprising poetry, aphorisms, and images, distributed by hand and mail to collaborators, friends, and like-minded acquaintances. Also in this section is:

• a rare, complete set of International Times (IT), including its precursor The Global Moon Edition Long Hair Times (1966)
• a complete set of Oz Magazine with all of the inserts
• a large collection of underground press newspapers such as Berkeley Barb, Other Scenes, Rolling Stone, Friends, East Village Other, Liberation News Service, San Francisco Oracle, and The Oracle of Southern California

Shapero is asking a seven figure sum for the whole collection and some of the several thousand individual pieces will be on view in their Bond Street Gallery November 10-21.