Seeking Faust.
UK: Scarlet Imprint, 2014. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. 72pp. Golden ochre cloth lettered in red on spine, red rooster device on front board. Black & white illustrations by Jennifer Rain Crosby. Scarlet endpapers. Edition limited to 150 hand-numbered copies. From the publisher: "Seeking Faust is a play by the poet Dale Pendell, author of the acclaimed Pharmako trilogy on psychoactive plants, a comedy of 13 scenes in prose, following a verse prologue. The dramatic form is apposite, invoking its origins in the archaic rites of Dionysus, the god of vegetal life, intoxication and revolution. With Seeking Faust, Pendell revisits the legend of Dr Faustus, giving his own slant to the story made famous by Marlowe and Goethe. Our protagonist is Wagner, Faust’s former student and apprentice, who has chosen the royal path of alchemy over his master’s necromantic conjurations. His goal, to seek his master whom rumour would have is ‘far from dead.’ By art Wagner makes his antagonist, the Serpent, appear. As Mephistopheles is Faust’s shamanic ally, so is the Serpent to Pendell’s Wagner. Born of the homunculus, the hermaphroditic Serpent leads our hero on a visionary journey through various illusory scenarios, including the evocation of Augustine, a psychedelic trip, an encounter with Freud, and eventually ending in jail, defended by Daniel Webster. Pendell, known for his own adventures on the poison path (‘so completely articulated’ in Goethe’s Faust), here uses humour as a pharmakon to counter our postmodern malaise." This copy "as new", thus a tight, sharp & clean Fine copy (no dust jacket issued). Out-of-print shortly after it was released due to the small number of copies published [150 copies ]. Now scarce and hard to find. Item #51073
ISBN: 9780957449237
Price: $185.00