KATHY ACKER — Eurydice in the Underworld, Arcadia Books, London, 1997

First edition, paperback original, published by Arcadia Books, London, 1997. Cover design by Discript; cover image by Ian Shingleton. Illustrated softcover; 188 pages; 13.5 × 21.5 cm. ISBN 1-900850-08-7.

Condition: good, visibly handled; light rubbing, scratching and shallow creasing to wrappers, with minor edge and corner wear. Charity-shop Gift Aid label retained on the rear cover, partly obscuring the design credit. Interior condition not confirmed.

Published during the final months of Acker’s life, the collection brings together the newly written Eurydice in the Underworld and Requiem with earlier fiction and drama, including Politics, The Translations of the Diaries of Laure the Schoolgirl and The Birth of the Poet.

The title work repositions the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice around the woman left below. Acker draws directly upon cancer, surgery, hospitalisation and a collapsing relationship, converting autobiography into a descent through illness, death and underground culture. It is one of her final and most exposed uses of myth: an inherited story made to carry the body of the writer.

The rear label records another passage. First issued as a £10.99 paperback, the book later entered charity-shop circulation before returning as a scarce first edition. The mark remains part of that movement.

Securely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.