Arcana:

(WILLIAMS, MASON) (RUSCHA, EDWARD). Williams, Mason. Los Angeles: Self-Published, 1966. First Edition 1/500. 8vo. Cloth. Artist's Book. Near Fine/No Jacket - As Issued. np, 21 b&w illustrations + endpapers. Designed by Ed Ruscha. In a protective clear acetate dustwrapper. A year prior to Ed Ruscha, Mason Williams and Patrick Blackwell's Consumer Reports-style crash test involving a Royal manual typewriter ejected from a 1963 Buick LeSabre traveling at ninety miles per hour along US Highway 91 that became "Royal Road Test", the same Oklahoma-born trio collaborated on self-published "The Night I Lost my Baby...". It features Mason Williams's first-person prose poem narrative of shattered romance illustrated with Patrick Blackwell's vintage photographs of Sin City - all art directed by Ed Ruscha. A most handsome example of the uncommon first and only edition limited to five hundred unnumbered copies additionally bearing the BOLDLY SIGNED AND DATED PRESENTATION "To ... / Mason Williams / 1967" in black ink on the front free endpaper showing some light soiling and dulling to the metallic cloth covers. Inventory Number: 026020