Malicious Damage
London: Donlon, 2013.
ISBN: 9780957609501
Condition: As New
Hardcover
First Edition
In 1962, then inknown playwriter, John (Joe) Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell, were tried at Old Street Magistrates Court, London, charged with, ‘larceny, malicious damage and wilful damage’, involving hundreds of Islington Library’s book stock. Over the previous three years the pair had been secretly stealing these books, removing what amounted to thousands of valuable art plates and either using them to create alternative dust jackets for other books, (which were then returned quietly to the library’s shelves for unsuspecting browsers to find), or pasting them directly into a large and uninterrupted collage spanning the interior walls of their one-roomed flat nearby. The pair would receive a six-month custodial sentence for these actions. Their deaths five years later became the sensationalised end to what had largely been a private, enclosed life together; Orton murdered by Halliwell who then took his own life. Malicious Damage looks closely at the collaged dust jackets still remaining within the archive at Islington Local History Centre and focuses on the early collaborative nature of Orton and Halliwell’s relationship. Item #13894
Out of stock
