Alan BEAM

London, Revelaction Press, 1976. First edition, published September 1976. 33 x 20.5 cm. Pink wrappers, stapled, 220 pp. Printed on different colour papers. Cover photos by Mark Edwards. Nicholas Albery (using the pseudonym Alan Beam) presents an autobiographical trip through the counterculture in a blend of fact and fiction, delivering a vivid participant's account of the emergent alternative society and the birth of the 'New Age'. The story starts with the author's account of acid and mystical experiences at Oxford in 1966, moves on to San Francisco's hippie culture of Haight-Ashbury and returns to the London underground scene where Albery sets up several activists organizations (such as 'Link' in the story which matches with 'BIT' in real life), participates in squat-ting movement, the Notting Hill 'freak' scene and the Windsor Free Festivals. The cover photographs show the author with his wife, Josefine, baby son, close friend Nicholas Saunders, and others strolling naked with a goat through Piccadilly Circus at dawn on September 7, 1976, an 'undress rehearsal' for Timothy Leary's vision of pasture land in Piccadilly by the year 2000. Nicholas Bronson Albery (1948 – 2001) was a British social inventor, author and insti-gator of a variety of activist projects promoting an alternative society. A scarce and fragile publication. Spine and back cover damaged (tape added to fix rips). Front page features small removed sticker on upper right corner. Overal age toning and wear with small tears along the edges. Interior mostly good.