Kesey's Jail Journal: Cut the M************ Loose

New York: Viking, 2003. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Signed by Author(s). Signed by Ed McClanahan, S. McDougall, and George Walker on the title page, as well as by editor David Stanford on the page with the Editor's Note. First edition, first printing (with full number line). White cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine. Dust jacket not price clipped; in clear archival sleeve. Very faint bump to fore-corner of front board (mildly affecting the jacket), else fine. Illustrations and text. xiii, 110 pages. 11 x 8 inches. Signed by Merry Prankster George Walker, Ed McClanahan (the author of the introduction and longtime friend of Kesey's), David Stanford (the editor), and Scott McDougall (who did the art lettering on the dust jacket cover; who has also created the art on many modern Grateful Dead releases, including several of the Dave's Picks and Road Trips series and the Europe '72 box set amongst others). Four years after the legendary 1964 bus trip--immortalized in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test--Kesey began serving time in the San Mateo County Jail for pot possession. Transferred to an experimental low-security ''honor camp'' in the redwood forest, he spent six months clearing brush and immersing himself in the life of the jail community, attempting to ''bring light and color'' to it. ''This is crazier here than the nuthouse ever was,'' Kesey noted, and proceeded to record the scene in numerous notebooks with intense and brilliantly colored artwork. Upon returning to Oregon, Kesey turned the raw notebook material into an illustrated collage stretching across dozens of 18'' x 23'' boards. Realizing that publication of this elaborate, handwritten book was more than his publisher was willing to attempt, he put it aside. Almost thirty years later he returned to the project and brought it to completion during the final years of his life.