THE GAS

First UK edition, first printing. Paperback original. Card covers illustrated by Harry Douthwaite. A very good or better copy, the binding square and firm, with slight rubbing at the spine tips. The lightly toned contents are clean throughout and without stamps or inscriptions.

An extremely explicit and controversial erotic science fiction novel first published in 1970 by Ophelia Press, an imprint of Olympia Press, publishers of avant-garde fiction and erotica known for issuing the first editions of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955) and William S. Burroughs' 'The Naked Lunch' (1959). This edition was published in 1980 by Manchester's independent, punk-spirited science fiction publisher Savoy Books, founded in 1976 by Michael Butterworth and David Britton. Savoy suffered over 50 raids by the Manchester Police between 1976 and 1981, during which countless copies of 'Gas' were seized, leading to the imprisonment of Britton in Strangeways prison under the Obscene Publications Act. Persistent police pressure forced Savoy to go into liquidation in 1981, though Butterworth and Britton retained the Savoy name as book packagers. They later resumed publishing, branching out into records and comics, but, having experienced losing copyrights as publishers in 1981, now exclusively published their own work. Police raids continued until 1997 and two charges were made against Savoy's 'Lord Horror' and 'Meng and Ecker' titles (for which Britton served further prison time), one of which was overturned with the help of the human rights organisation Article 19. 'Gas' follows a scientist as he flees from an explosion at a weapons laboratory, releasing a cloud of gas that removes all human inhibition from those that breathe it, causing a nightmarish orgy of violence and intense sexual depravity to spread across the country. Charles Platt stated that he wrote 'Gas' as a satirical exercise in dispelling his own British sense of propriety before moving to the United States. A fascinating artefact of Britain's complex relationship with censorship and the disruptive publishers and creatives that have challenged it.