A wonderfully particular piece of Beat ephemera: a 1985 Belgian anthology of essays, reminiscences, criticism, fragments, letters, and assorted literary debris orbiting Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation.

Edited by Rudi Horemans and published by EXA Publishers in Antwerp, it includes contributions on Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Neal Cassady, Diane di Prima, Nelson Algren, and the wider constellation of writers, readers, hangers-on, scholars, mythmakers, and professional cigarette-holders who kept the Beat afterlife moving.

This is not a clean, institutional “introduction to the Beats” so much as a small-press time capsule. The design and typography have that lovely pre-digital texture — courier type, awkward spacing, earnestness leaking through the margins. A good object for readers and collectors interested in Beat studies, Kerouaciana, little magazines, literary counterculture, and the slightly strange European reception of American postwar rebellion.

Paperback anthology, edited by Rudi Horemans and published by EXA Publishers, Antwerp, Belgium, 1985. Cover by Rudi Horemans and Marvano. ISBN 9070530600. Good second-hand condition, with light shelfwear, mild cover marking and edge wear, and age-toning to pages. Binding sound.