Curtains

Editor Paul Buck.

Curtains1-21 (in thirteen volumes including a supplement)
 
Maidstone (issues 1-3) then Hebden Bridge (3.5-21): [Pressed Curtains], 1971-1978. 1st editions. Published under a range of titles (not often giving issue numbers), as follows:

(1) Curtains. 1971. Oblong 8vo. Stab-stapled wrappers, hand-titled to the spine and back cover, the latter also with ‘bullet holes’, plus a fewholograph additions internally. 64pp.
One of 400 numbered copies (albeit all of them number 13);

(2)Safety Curtain. 1972. Oblong 8vo. Stab-stapled. 64pp.;

(3) Curtain-Raiser. 1972. 4to. Stab-stapled. [42pp.];
(3.5) Curtains in the Meantime. 1972. 4to. Stapled at the top corner. Unpaginated (4pp.);

(4) Curtains 4. 1972. Folio. Stab-stapled. Unpaginated (32pp.);

(5) French Curtains. 1973. 4to. Stab-stapled. Unpaginated (60pp.). With the loose note;

(6/7) A Range of Curtains. 1973. Eighteen 4to parts, each stapled at the top corner except for three single sheets, in total 180pp., in an envelope(it and the title page not addressed);

(8) Upside Down Curtains & Appendages. 1974. 4to. Stapled at the top corner. Unpaginated (34pp.);

(9) Drawn Curtains. 1974. 4to.Stab-stapled. Unpaginated (62pp.);

(10) Velvet Curtains. 1974. 4to. Stab-stapled. Unpaginated (76pp.);

(11/12/13) Split Curtains. 1975. 4to. Wrappers, the upper wrapper with illustration affixed. [138pp.]; A supplement to Split Curtains. Nd. 4to. Stab-stapled. [16pp.];

(14/15/16/17) Curtains, le prochain step. 1976. 4to. Stab-stapled into wrappers. 210pp., with two of the sheets folding out; and

(18/19/20/21) bal:le:d curtains. 1978. 4to. Stab-stapled wrappers, with ‘a second editorial’ affixed inside the upper wrapper. [178pp.].
Plus a Pressed Curtains catalogue from September 1976 (oblong 8vo, stab-stapled, unpaginated (10pp.)).

Contributors across the run include COUM Transmissions, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Pierre Faye, Bernard Noël, Laure, Edmond Jabès, Paul Auster, Lydia Davis, Robert Kelly, Larry Eigner, Clayton Eshleman, Allen Fisher, Eric Mottram, Ulli McCarthy, Jeff Nuttall, Barry MacSweeney, John Hall, Douglas Oliver, Iain Sinclair, John James, Bill Griffiths, Peter Riley, Pierre Joris, Keith Waldrop, Rosmarie Waldrop, Cid Corman, Claude Royet-Journoud, Roger Giroux, Alain Veinstein, Roger Laporte, Danielle Collobert, Mitsou Ronat, Jacques Roubaud, Marcelin Pleynet, Agnès Rouzier, Joë Bousquet, Jean Daive, Jean Frémon, Susan Hiller, Gina Pane, Henri Maccheroni, Jean-Luc Parant, Paul Neagu, Philip Corner, Ulrike Meinhof, Opal L. Nations, Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Anthony Barnett, Michael Haslam, Glenda George, Geraldine Monk, Kris Hemensley, Brian Catling, and Buck.
Curtains is distinguished by many of its aspects, such as its rigorous andcoherent editing,its formal inventiveness,the idiosyncracy of its contributor lists, the introduction into English of numerous significant French writers,its use of the mimeograph, changing to litho printing for the later issues,andits sheer volume.
A superb achievement, it could comfortably be said to be the foremost example of prose andpoetry magazine publishing in the UK in the 1970s