Norman Douglas - Some Limericks - Soft Cover

Nornan Douglas’ 1928 book Some Limericks, the first bawdy limerick book openly published, has been pirated numerous times.

Here are four variants — all 5.6" X 8.3" tall, plain covers, with wrappers.  The title pages and copyrights notwithstanding, all of these books appear to have originated in Paris and to have been the work of  Maurice Girodias.  Girodias founded the Olympia Press in the spring of 1953; it followed his Les Editions du Chêne publishing house, which, in turn, succeded the Obelisk Press, a revival of his father Jack Kahane's publishing house.  In all likelihood, Girodias continued printing various pirated editions of Some Limericks during the 1940s and 1950s without regard to which sign (if any) was on the door.  Legman in the bibliography of The Limerick cites the Obelisk Press? c. 1950; many book dealers cite Les Editions du Chêne [Woolf 27Ae; a pirated edition published in Paris in 1951, by Les Editions du Chêne ], other sources cite Olympia Press as late as 1960.    It is thought that the Olympia Press edition (alpha) was completely retypeset, hence the slight differences from the earlier editions.  

Editions have been assigned phonetic alphabet identification to assist in tracking them.