Beautiful Losers.

COHEN, Leonard.

$4,000.00

Item Number: 124873

Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966.

First edition of Cohen’s second and final novel. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, warmly inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Dear Susan Farrier MacKay, Thanks for your kind words. Am I in that bath or serenading from a distance? All good things to you Leonard Cohen Toronto November 18, 1992.” Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket drawing by Harold Town. Jacket design by Frank Newfeld. With a letter from the recipient laid in mentioning how she sent a letter to Cohen fantasizing of sitting in a bubble bath, drinking champagne and listening to Cohen sing I’m Your Man. An exceptional inscription.

Beautiful Losers is an expression of the 1960's. Leonard Cohen wrote it while fasting and consuming amphetamines to focus his creativity. The product is a complex novel that uses a range of literary techniques, allusions, and symbolism (Adria, 1990). It is noted for its excesses of language and sexuality, and it is filled with the mysticism and drug-use that is emblematic of the era (Goldie, 2003). In a similar manner, the plot is not a linear, coherent progression. Key scenes repeat themselves, and there is no intelligible timeline. Beautiful Losers gained great popularity when Cohen turned from writer to popular singer-songwriter, and it is remembered for having introduced postmodernism to the Canadian literary canon.