Watching My Name Go By

First UK edition, cloth issue. (Does not feature the names of the various graffiti artists or publication info; uncertain priority relative to the more common softcover British edition.) Bound in publisher's navy boards. Fine in original dust jacket with sunned spine panel and light shelf wear, else Fine. Rare. Color photographs of subway graffiti in the early '70s, when the idea of graffiti as a form of popular art form was still in its infancy. An urban crime wave was helping to finish off the already crushed idealism of the hippie era and greenlight the way for the backlash culture of the '70s and '80s epitomized by figures like Charles Bronson's vigilante in Death Wish and Ronald Reagan. Features a 16 page bicolumnar essay by acclaimed novelist Norman Mailer, "The Faith of Graffiti." That was the title the book was published under in the US.