Tarasque [Mills, Stuart; Cutts, Simon]
Tarasque Magazine 2 - 11/12. Tarasque, 1965-1971. 8vo, org. wrappers.
With Aggie Weston's. A broken run of the journal being 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 14-17. Distributed by Tarasque Press (the last by Coracle). 8vo, org. wrappers.
Along with thirteen other ephemeral items relating to the press, including Robert Lax's Able Charlie Baker Dance (1 of 250); Simon Cutts' Thirteen Preludes (no. 65 of 250); and a number of postcards and cards, three of which have been written from Simon Cutts to the artist Karl Torok.

The run of Tarasque offered here forms an almost complete run (lacking only the first issue) of the notoriously direct and polemical avant garde small press publication devoted to the 'small poem', the lyrically brief 'post-concrete' successor to the avant garde movement of the 50s. The press was founded by Mills in 1964 when he opened the Trent Bookshop with Martin Parnell. It was named for the legendary fire-breathing monster which tormented the Rhone Valley, and drew its inspiration from Wyndham Lewis' Blast. The Press and its founders would drive the recognition of Nottingham as the regional centre of avant garde publishing in the UK. Tarasque would become noted for its professionalism - in direct and strident opposition to the deliberately ephemeral, throw-away, ramshackle approach of rivals such as Fluxus.

Cutts would ultimately depart for London, where he founded the Coracle Press. Many other Tarasque alumni would develop their own work in a similar way, such as painter Ian Gardner who went on to form Blue Tunnel, with many of the same suspects contributing. When the Trent Bookshop went bankrupt Stuart Mills began distributing Aggie Weston's. Named for the founder of seamen's homes it was intended as an artists' refuge. This lot includes a broken run of the publication, along with other examples of the design and printing work of the press.