59.13

Advertisements for Myself. New York: Putnam’s, 6 November; London: Deutsch, October 1961 (see 61.15 for note on British edition). Miscellany, 532 pp., $5.

Original working title: “The Hip and the Square: A Miscellany.” Republished with preface by Mailer. New York: Berkley, December 1976 (76.16). Preface reprinted (minus first paragraph) as “An Advertisement Advertised” in 82.16. Dedication: “I dedicate this book to the memory of Anne Mailer Kessler (1889-1958) and to David Kessler and to my father Isaac Barnett (‘Barney’) Mailer.” Portions of this miscellany appeared in periodicals at approximately the same time the book was published, a tactic that Mailer used to herald most of his major books from 1959 on. Rpt: 59.12; all of the short stories appear in 67.11 and 82.19; several selections appear in 98.7 and 13.1. See 59.8a, 59.10, 59.14, 13.2, 242–258.

“ So Advertisements became the book in which I tried to separate my legitimate spiritual bile from my self-pity and maybe it was the hardest continuing task I had yet set myself. What aggravated every problem was that I was also trying to give up smoking, and the advertisements in this book, printed in italics, are testimony to the different way I was now obliged to use language. ” — Norman Mailer, 76.14

• 

Bibliography

Reviews

Essays