DYLAN, BOB. — Tarantula.

Amsterdam : White Press 1971 79 p., ills., 20 x 29 cm. SOFTCOVER: (Orig. paperb. with ochre colored cover with black portrait of Dylan on title. VERY GOOD) THIS EDITION IS VERY RARE AND SOUGHT AFTER. This stenciled, is or looks like the clandestine pirate version. TARANTULA is an experimental prose poetry collection, written in 1965 and 1966, widely bootleged and partially published by some undergrounds magazines in the late 60s-early 70s, till it was officially published in 1971. It employs stream of consciousness writing, somewhat in the style of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. One section of the book parodies the Leadbelly's song Black Betty. Reviews of the book liken it to his self-penned liner notes to two of Bob Dylan's albums recorded around the same time, BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME and HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED. Dylan would later cite TARANTULA as a book he had never fully signed up to write: 'Things were running wild at that point. It never was my intention to write a book.' He went on to equate the book to John Lennon's nonsensical work IN HIS OWN WRITE, and implied that his former manager Albert Grossman signed up Dylan to write the novel without the singer's full consent... Although it was to be edited by Dylan and published in 1966, his motorcycle accident in July '66 prevented this. Numerous bootleg versions of the book were available on the black market through 1971, when it was officially published to critical scorn.