23 numbered copies

£15 inc shipping

16 pages. Format approx. 6"/150mm wide x 300mm/12" tall. Handsewn at the Sick Tangerine workshop. Recycled Cairn almond stiff card covers; front cover artwork embossed in black. Heritage book white text paper; hand marbled 'gold vein on cherry red' endpapers.

With reproductions of the original drawings by Ben Tibbs. Heroin Haikus was first published as a very small format pouch-book with Spero magazine in 1966. A limited edition of Wantling's miniature-masterpiece is available once more as a monograph.

PLEASE NOTE:
A trade edition of Heroin Haikus is available HERE

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Illinois born Wantling joined the US Marines at seventeen years of age and served in the Korea War during 1953. He claimed to have been injured after the jeep he was being transported in ran over a landmine. He received severe burns and was treated with morphine. He was honourably discharged in 1955, having attained the rank of sargeant (aged 20 years). The years immediately following his time in the Marines were spent in California, where he met the woman who was to become his first wife, Luana. They soon became addicted to heroin and, to support their growing habit, resorted to petty crime, assaults and robbery. By 1958, Wantling was found guilty of forgery and possession of narcotics and incarcerated at San Quentin Prison for 5½ years. Whilst there, his wife (with their son in tow) divorced him. It was in prison that he began writing and his experiences there form the basis of Heroin Haikus. Following his release in 1963, Wantling returned to Illinois, remarried and, under the G.I. Bill, enrolled at Illinois State University, where he went on to obtain a B.A. and an M.A. in English. On completing his studies, the faculty asked him to stay on as a lecturer. However, Wantling still had serious mental health and addiction problems, which no doubt led to his dying of heart failure on May 2nd 1974, aged 40 years.