Photo reblogged from Bliss & Frolic with 11 notes
In May 1962 a pair of would-be writers were each sentenced to six months in prison for defacing library books. It was a truly surreal crime. Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton had met and fallen in love as students at Rada. They did not make it as actors, but instead wrote novels that did not get published. Their main escape from their literary efforts in their little Islington flat was to visit their local library, where they practised a highly individual art form.
Orton and Halliwell delighted in cutting up and rearranging the covers of the jaded volumes on the library shelves, creating bizarre collages that turned dreary 1950s book jackets into hilarious, erotically charged works of art.
As much as I generally think defacing library books makes you a dick, I have a lot of time for Orton.
Source: stellikerk
