GHOST OF CHANCE. William S. Burroughs / George Condo. Whitney Museum, 1991

New York: Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1991. Prospectus for the eighth publication in the Artists and Writers Series. Four-page folded pamphlet with separate original order form. Offset-printed text with black-and-white reproduction after George Condo.

Condition: Good. Scattered foxing, surface marks and handling creases throughout, with diagonal creasing and wear at the upper corners. The separate order form has light toning, foxing and a small dark mark. Both elements remain complete and unsent.

Ghost of Chance first appeared in this edition of 160 copies, signed by William S. Burroughs and George Condo. The book combined Burroughs’s previously unpublished novella with three soft-ground etchings, pictorial initials and tipped-in reproductions of Condo’s paintings. Published by the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum, it entered the collections of institutions including MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The prospectus records the full production of the book: organised by May Castleberry, designed by Leslie Miller, with Condo’s etchings proofed alongside Aldo Crommelynck in Paris, the text set in Monotype Walbaum and printed at the Grenfell Press, and the finished edition hand-bound and slipcased by Claudia Cohen.

The accompanying order form preserves the original terms of distribution. Each copy was offered through the Whitney Museum Library for $1,800, with New York sales tax calculated at $148.50, domestic UPS shipping at $15 and overseas registered mail at $30. Before the finished book entered museum and private collections, the collaboration circulated in this smaller form: image, production record, price, shipping instructions and a blank space for the purchaser’s name.

Securely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.