A selection of Billy Childish book projects published by L-13 and associates over the years.
Vipers Tongue Press Poetry Pamphlets
Three volumes of poetry:
100 yds of crash barrier (Pamphlet 001)
cancer of the gallows (Pamphlet 002)
poems nobody wants (Pamphlet 003)
First Edition, 2020
32 pages each volume
21 x 14.85 cm
hand stamped covers
stapled in sugar paper with glassine outer cover
EDITIONS
Readers Edition: 113 copies of each sold separately
Collectors Edition: 26 Signed and lettered (A-Z) sets in a stamped belly band
These books are hand made.
Vipers Tongue Press is an imprint of Hangman Books
Published on the occasion of the exhibition
skulls wolfs nudes rope pullers and a nervous breakdown
neugerriemschneider, Berlin
November 2020
Vipers Tongue Press Frontispiece Watercolours
These intimate & unabashed watercolours by Billy Childish are based on the three frontispiece drawings he made for the first set of Vipers Tongue Poetry Pamphlets:
100 yds of crash barrier (Pamphlet 001)
cancer of the gallows (Pamphlet 002)
poems nobody wants (Pamphlet 003)
Frontispiece 1, 2 & 3
2020
42 x 30 cm each
Watercolour and pencil on paper
signed and dated by the artist
Childish’s works in watercolour are rarely offered for sale and the artist has made these available specially to help fund the activities of his new small press that publishes pamphlets at below cost price.
First Edition, October 2020
BC Studio Editions in association with L-13 Press of Clerkenwell
33 x 23.5 cm
200 pages on 170g Perigord Matt
Available in two editions
Signed Ltd Edition Hardback
Bound in raw grey book board with inset pictorial label, foiled titles and linen spine.
Edition of 113 signed and numbered copies with additional archival print laid in.
ISBN 978-1-908067-28-9
Paperback Edition
500 copies
Bound in 300g Munken Pure Rough with laid in pictorial label and folded flaps
ISBN 978-1-908067-27-2
“These photographs were taken over the last 48 years or so. They seem to be about my fascination with myself – and some of those I have met on my journey through life. The earliest photograph is from when I was about 14, taken on my brother’s instamatic. I was brought up in a house full of old Victorian mirrors that my parents bought on the cheap from second hand shops. I saw myself too much and painted self-portraits from age 12. ‘Who am I and why?’ was a persistent question for me back then. Maybe that has passed and now it’s all just a celebration. From a very damaged and broken childhood I have emerged through abuse and alcoholism to construct a world of love and a family – built in love I never experienced as a child. Here are some pictures of that journey.”
Danger Bill Henderson (photographer) AKA Billy Childish, William Ivy Loveday . . . etc, etc …
…. You’ll Be Shot With The Crows
Selected Poetry 2015 – 2019
Published by Hangman Books in association with Tangerine Press and L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, October 2019
Library Edition
Edition of 31 copies
Signed, numbered and stamped by the author
Hand bound by Tangerine Press in buckram covered board with the original pictorial covers laid in
Kent County Lending Library slip tipped in with buyer’s name hand-written in ink
Each copy comes with an individual poem from the book laid in, hand-typed and signed by the author
140 pages
22.5 x 15 cm
Also released as a paperback in a signed limited edition of 100, and unsigned regular edition.
On a recent visit to the L-13 Archive Vaults we found several boxes of the first book we ever published for Billy Childish (his third novel): Sex Crimes of the Futcher.
The book was published in 2004 by the aquarium, the former incarnation of L-13, in two issues: bound in red or green cloth.
That’s 15 years ago so we’ve decided it’s time for a 15th Anniversary Archive Edition.
Originally published with a screen printed dust jacket, this now inverted and reprinted with an original woodcut and with added rubber stamped titles and imprint on spine.
Available in two edition options.
Green: 1st issue bound in green cloth, edition of 25 signed and numbered.
Red: 2nd issue bound in red cloth, edition of 75 signed and numbered.
Each book is signed and numbered by the author on the title page and comes in a numbered dust jacket with an original woodcut printed on the front and title and imprints rubber stamped on the spine and back.
The book is a raw and highly charged read, and the first of Billy’s novels to be published in his dyslexic hand without corrections.
These are the last copies we have and after they are gone it will be very scarce indeed.
Released February 2019.
The Billy Childish Studio 2012-2018
Photographs by Rikard Österlund
A Billy Childish Studio Publication
in association with L-13 Light Industrial Workshop
Published December 2018
120 pages
Featuring more than 80 photographs taken at Billy Childish’s painting studio over the course of six years
33 x 24 cm
Available in three variations:
Regular edition
No dust jacket
Unsigned
Three pictorial dust jackets
Ladder, Silhouette, or Man in Cave
Each an edition of 50 books
Signed and numbered by Billy Childish and Rikard Österlund
Original Woodcut Edition
One colour woodcut on 175gsm Somerset Book stock with hand-stamped titles
Edition of 29
Lettered in the Swedish alphabet
Signed by Billy Childish and Rikard Österlund
With an additional award-winning photograph laid in, Billy & Huddie In The Studio
Issued by the L-13 Rejects Department for a number of regrettable errors in the unofficial and discarded first print run of the fully revised and updated The Uncorrected Billy Childish by Tangerine Press.
Published November 2018.
Extract from Publisher’s Note:
When Michael came sobbing into my arms with his tale of woe, crying about the books he was going to have to destroy, and how terrible and embarrassing it all was, and how much money he was losing, I suppressed my instinct to laugh, held his dog-like, tearful face in my hands and said, “Michael, dry your eyes you big hairy baby… it will be alright!”.
All reject copies come as follows:
Housed in a custom made box
Including a single colour screen-printed cardboard Crow print/dust jacket by Billy Childish
Front cover stamped with a REJECT stamp and corner-clipped
Errata slip and Publisher’s Note laid in
Available in two editions:
Lettered Edition
Edition of 26 signed and lettered copies
With an additional signed and lettered Crow screen-print by Billy Childish laid inside
Numbered Edition
Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies
unbegreiflich aber gewiss
(Trans: unknowable but certain)
Edition of 26 signed and lettered copies with an original woodcut cover.
A colossal catalogue of every single painting made by Billy Childish between August 2014 and January 2017.
Published July 2017.
29 x 33 x 3.5 cm
210 paintings
260 pages
3.5 kg
All bound in heavy grey book card, quarter bound in linen with pictorial label and foiled titles. Available in five dust jacket options: four giclée printed and one original woodcut.
BC Studio Editions, 2017
In association with the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop
- Privately published in an edition of 500 copies of which 126 copies are available to buy. All other copies for internal and institutional use only.
- This an edition of 26 with original three-colour woodcut dust jacket, on 175gsm Somerset Book stock, signed and lettered by the artist.
- Also available as an edition of 100 with four dust jackets options, all high quality giclée prints on heavy archival Hahnemuehle stock, signed and numbered by the artist.
Designed by Billy Childish, Steve Lowe and Rikard Österlund.
Second edition of 26 signed and lettered copies with a original woodcut cover.
Published October 2017.
A BILLY CHILDISH novella printed on bible paper.
The novella is based on the author’s true life experiences as a porter in a county asylum in the late 1970’s.
Since August 2015 thousands copies of Childish’s novella The Ward Porter have been distributed for free in major cities around the world without a clue to their origin or true author.
From Chatham to Cyprus, from Berlin to Bangkok, from London to LA, Childish representatives have inserted rogue copies in the fiction section of unsuspecting bookshops, left them in cafes and phone boxes, on trains and on the tops of bins in the street. It is hoped that at least several copies will have found safe homes, though we realise that most will have been trashed without a thought.
Photographs of some placements can be seen on Instagram @TheWardPorter
Some ‘finders’ may be intrigued to learn of the The Ward Porters origin and others, who never happened across a copy may be sad to have missed out.
To remedy this and help finance the folly of free books 75 copies of the ‘Free Edition’ have been specially bound in boards for L-13 with an original woodcut by the author laid in.
This “Library Edition” is hand bound in buckram covered board with the original pictorial covers laid in, has an Oakwood Hospital Library lending slip tipped in on the front endpaper and a 2 colour woodcut is bound in as a frontispiece.
Published December 2015.
Each copy signed and numbered by the author/artist.
This book is a survey of paintings made by the artist Billy Childish between August 2013 and August 2014.
Published September 2014.
Though neither complete nor strictly chronological this visual diary provides a useful insight into the ebb and flow of Childish’s oeuvre. This book presents paintings grouped loosely by theme and style, the order being allowed to mark its own rhythm and visual flow, often suggesting new narratives.
Hardback
Limited edition of 100.
Signed and numbered by the artist.
26.5 x 22.5 x 2 cm
Paperback
26 x 22 x 1.5 cm
A collection of poetry published on the occasion of the exhibition
billy childish: darkness was here yesterday
Carl Freedman Gallery, London
18 Sept – 26 October 2013
Available in the following editions:
Paperback
Softbound in plain brown card with debossed titles
Steifbroschur
Hardbound in plain grey book board with steifbroschur cloth spine and debossed titles
CENSORED
Ltd Edition of 26 signed and lettered copies with one page entirely censored by the publisher and poet
Hardbound in plain grey book board with steifbrsochur cloth spine, debossed titles and rubber stamp print additions
Steifbroschur edition with MONOPRINT
Ltd Edition of 113 signed and numbered copies with a monoprint by the artist laid inside
Hardbound in plain grey book board with steifbroschur cloth spine and debossed titles
EACH BOOK COMES WITH AN ORIGINAL GESTETNER PRINT OF A BILLY CHILDISH DRAWING LAID IN BETWEEN THE FRONT ENDPAPERS, a ‘SPECIAL EDITION’ LABEL on the FRONT ENDPAPER and IS HAND STAMPED with a HANGMAN’S GALLOWS
“…YES, in this modern day and age, a secondry skool boy without qualifications could consivably become a riter, but he must 1st learn to rite like an old woman then craft his fucking prose like a hiddious lace doyly for surving up overly sugary angel cake, then drooping it over the face of the dead.” Gustov Claudius
THE STONEMASON
new evidence (original revelations) – the assembled poem illustrating skivings and sketches made during a winter sojourn in her majistys dockyard c- in the year 1976.
Childish’s 5th novel.
327 pages, 198 mm x 128 mm bound brown card wraps and printed on pink paper.
Published 2011.