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Australian Counterculture

Oz. No. 1 (April 1963) through No. 41 (February 1969) (all published).

A complete run in 41 issues of the irreverent Australian counterculture journal, under the editorial direction of Richard Neville with Peter Grose, Dean Letcher, Martin Sharp, and Richard Walsh, containing stories related to topics including abortion, chastity, censorship, homosexuality, police brutality, organized crime, the Vietnam War, religion, domestic and international politics, film, and literature, together with information on the social scene in Sydney, cultural calendars, letters, cartoons, poetry, crossword puzzles, and satire and humor. Illustrated throughout. Some scattered pen or pencil notations, minor soiling. 4to. Orig. illustrated wrpps. Sydney 1963-1969.

The first issue of Oz came out on April Fools' Day 1963, and was an immediate sensation, selling 6,000 copies by lunchtime. Although Oz was first published in Sydney, a second, better-known version appeared in London from 1967 to 1973, also founded by Richard Neville. While the Australian version was more satirical in nature, the British version was more psychedelic and in-tune with the hippie culture in London at the time. However, both versions were the subject of obscenity trials during their publications, with the Australian version being cited twice and the British version cited once, very famously, in what was at the time the longest obscenity trial in British legal history. The Sydney publication is very scarce; as of September 2016, WorldCat locates only 4 holdings in North America.

Book ID: 48578

Price: $12,000.00