Ham on Rye - Signed - Charles Bukowski 1982 - Black Sparrow Press, Santa Barbara - First Edition. No. 277 of 350 signed copies. A fine first edition, signed with an additional drawing of Bukowski’s little man and a bottle, number 277 of 350 copies.

The first of Bukowski’s intentionally? poorly disguised autobiographies, which was followed by ‘Factotum ‘
Post Office’ and ‘Women.

‘Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, woman, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D.H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.’ [from the later
HarperCollins edition]
  References: Krumhansl, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Primary Publications of Charles Bukowski, 74d.

Octavo (book size 23.7x16.2cm), pp. [8] 9-283 [9]. In publisher’s yellow linen-backed cream paper boards, paper spine label lettered in blue and red, boards with red yellow and blue rule, upper board lettered and illustrated in blue red yellow, grey and black, blue endpapers. Enclosed in publisher’s clear acetate cover.

Published by the Black Sparrow Press as follows (with Krumhansl’s bibliographic reference number):-
74b - 5,029 softbound copies in wrappers.
74c - 750 hardcover trade copies.
74d - 350 hardcover copies numbered 1-350 signed by Bukowski in the colophon.
74e - 100 special deluxe hand-bound copies numbered 1-100 with an original oil painting, signed by Bukowski in the colophon.
74f - 26 lettered special deluxe copies hand-bound by Earle Gray, with an original oil painting, signed by Bukowski in the colophon.
74f - 6 special deluxe copies ‘
not for sale’, hand-bound by Earle Gray, with an original oil painting, signed by Bukowski in the colophon.
74f - 15 special deluxe copies marked ‘
Presentation Copy’ in the colophon, hand-bound by Earle Gray, with an original oil painting, signed by Bukowski in the colophon.

Note 74a was the broadside promotional flyer for the book of which about 9,000 copies were issued.
  Condition: Fine in very good clear acetate cover with light rubbing, and minor wrinkling to spine ends and corners.   Ref: 112001   Price: HK$ 18,000