Happened to be in the Finsbury EC1 area today (not to be confused with Finsbury Park N4) and happened across a public library containing an exhibition of Joe Orton’s defaced library books. A really fascinating find. To think the same man who became playwrite of such curios as “Loot”, “Entertaining Mr Sloan” and “What the Butler Saw” served a custodial setence under a 1916 Larceny Act for his fruity jacket-adaptations in an action brought by Islington Libraries is now being feted by the Islington Library Service in an exhibition of the covers that also includes photos of his collage style Holloway bedsit wallpaper constructed from plates removed from the books and his original typewriter purchased for £80 along with some pricey ribbons.
Well worth a look as is the museum at large which includes stuff on the migration histories Irish and Italian communities of Islington, the borough’s gay history (Chris Smith, Orton et al) and ex-resident Tony Blair. More details here.
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January 18, 2012 at 12:12 am
monty
Thanks for the pointer to this fascinating exhibition. On the subject of library books and transgression, I bought a copy of Baron Corvo’s once-notorious (or perhaps it still is?) Venice Letters from somewhere on the internet quite a few years ago only to find that it was a former library book from the “county reserve” of a British library that shall remain nameless. I was fascinated and very amused to discover that this almost secret book had been very carefully sellotaped by the library to conceal certain photographs which might possibly have offended the 5 people who had specially requested the book between 1982 and 2002.