The Floating Bear.

'sometimes it's a boat, and sometimes it's more of an accident'. Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones's Floating Bear is one of the most influential little magazines of the 1960s. It was distributed by mailing list, providing a quick way of disseminating avant-garde and experimental writing to a community of peers and kindred spirits. Contributors include Wallace Berman, William Burrough, Robert Creeley, Kirby Doyle, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, Ray Johnson, Jack Kerouac, Charles Olson, Frank O'Hara, LeRoi Jones, Allan Kaprow, Michael McClure, Ron Padgett, Diane di Prima, Hubert Selby, Jr., Jack Smith, and Jack Spicer.

A copy of issue 9 sent to Harold Carrington, then incarcerated in Rahway Prison, New Jersey, was read by prison officials, who objected to LeRoi Jones's 'The System of Dante's Hell' and William S. Burroughs's 'Routine'. Jones and di Prima were subsequently arrested on postal obscenity charges. The case never reached court after a grand jury hearing failed to deliver an indictment. Jones resigned in 1963 after issue 25. Issue 24, present in facsimile, is scarce because they printed only 500 copies, half as many as were usually printed by that time. 200 were mailed out, and the remaining 300 unmailed copies were accidentally thrown away.

The majority of the copies in this set were sent to Tram Combs, a writer who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1940s. In 1951, he moved to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, where he owned and operated a bookshop. Combs was active in gay literary circles and contributed to early gay periodicals such as the Mattachine Review (1955-1967) and One (1952-1967).

Periodical; 38 issues, [1–37] US letter (280 x 216 mm, 10 x 8½ in); each issue has between 4 and 18 side-stapled leaves mimeograph-printed on both sides, most folded for mailing, with postage stamp, post office cancel, mailing label or addressed by hand. Issue nos. 1–7, 11, 13, 15-17, 19–20, 25–27, and 30 to Tram Coombs, Books, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, no. 31 to Ted Wilentz, and no. 34 to Clayton Eshleman, occasional marks, wear and light soiling, occasional oxidation to staples, toning to several issues, no. 24 in facsimile, no. 25 with peach Auerhahn Journals leaf, address amended in purple ink and correction to thanks page in blue, no. 33 with final leaf loosened, a very good set; various paginations; [38] this final issue published as a special issue of Allen de Loach's Intrepid, guest edited by Diane di Prima: Intrepid #20/Floating Bear #38 'The Intrepid-Bear Issue' 4to (279 x 216 mm, 11 x 8½ in); wire-stitched in green covers, upper side printed in black; 130pp.

Clay & Phillips pp78-79.