Ankor Wat by Allen Ginsberg

GINSBERG, Allen; Alexandra LAWRENCE (photographs). Ankor Wat. London, Fulcrum Press, 1968.

First edition of Ginsberg’s poem, written during his travels through South East Asia.

Ginsberg wrote the poem Ankor Wat during a five-day stay in Siem Reap, Cambodia’s second largest city near the Angkor Wat temples, in June 1963. A fine example of his ‘confessional poetry’, Ginsberg later revealed that he had penned the poem in a single night, amidst a state of semi-consciousness induced by morphine-atropine. This first edition is beautifully illustrated with ten photographs of the Angor Wat temples by Alexandra Lawrence.

Octavo, pp. [48], illustrated throughput with full-page B/W photographs by Lawrence; very good in the original green and white rappers, lettered in black and green (wrappers lightly soiled and creased).