ONE OF THE RAREST OF THE ARTIST'S EARLY WORKS: A USELESS DEATH, 1972 FIRST EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 300 SIGNED COPIES

SMITH, Patti. A Useless Death. (New York: Gotham Book Mart & Gallery, 1972). Octavo, two bifolios of 8-1/2 by 11-inch brown paper folded together and stapled as issued; pp. [8]. $2200.

Signed limited first edition of this verse narrative, number 111 of only 300 numbered and signed copies.

"Patti Smith has long held dual passports in the music and literary worlds. She came to performance as a poet, declaiming verse from the St. Mark's Church Poetry Project altar in 1971" (New York Times). By then she was already "'a legend on the New York poetry circuit,' wrote Nick Tosches. 'She was feared, revered, and her public readings elicited the sort of gut response that had been alien to poetry for more than a few decades'" (Bockris and Bayley, Patti Smith, 96). "A Useless Death" was published and distributed by Gotham Book Mart, where Smith acted as a book scout during her early years in New York; her similarly mimeographed chapbook "Early Morning Dream" was published the same year in an edition of 100.

Small stain to bottom corner of wrappers. A near-fine copy.