Klactoveedsedsteen:

An Inventory of Its Records in the Manuscript Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

Biographical Sketch

Klactoveedsedsteen was a magazine founded by writer Carl Weissner in 1965 in Heidelberg, Germany. Through his own PANic Press, Weissner published five issues of Klacto from June 1965 to the fall of 1967.

Weissner’s connection to a network of writers in England, the United States, and throughout Europe enabled him to assemble a diverse group of contributors for each issue, including such luminaries as Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg, as well as European writers like Henri Chopin and Claude Pélieu. Frequent contributors included Doug Blazek, Diane Di Prima, Larry Eigner, Dick Higgins, Gerard Malanga, Harold Norse, and Jeff Nuttall, among others. Weissner also contributed his own work, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Kwee Sinh, Sr. With such an international collection of writers, Klacto was multilingual by design, incorporating pieces written in English, German, French, Dutch, and even Bengali.

Above all, Weissner wanted to create a forum for experimenting with language. Klacto became an amalgam of innovative literary forms, such as poem-drawings, concrete poetry, graffiti, and cut-ups, as well as more traditional verse forms. To exemplify his philosophy, he published Klacto 2 as two 7-foot long scrolls overlapped to create a series of cut-up texts. Subsequent issues were perhaps less daring in format, but continued to explore new forms. Klacto 3 included the first published accounts of William S. Burroughs’ tape recorder experiments that emerged from his collaboration with Ian Sommerville in London. Weissner’s own interest in sound recordings prompted the fifth and final issue, Klacto 23, to be published concurrently with an hour-long audio recording of readings by Klacto contributors and others, most notably an experimental sound piece by Brion Gysin. Weissner also published a variant edition of this final issue as Klacto 23 International.

One of Weissner’s closest connections in the United States, poet and contributor Carol Bergé, helped distribute Klacto by contacting bookstores in New York City and introducing Weissner to other writers. As was common practice in this circle, Weissner traded issues of Klacto for copies of other little magazines, such as Jeff Nuttall’s My Own Mag from London, to distribute them in Germany and, in turn, circulate Klacto more widely.

Return to the Table of Contents

Scope and Contents

Creative works, correspondence, production material, and advertisement flyers document the publishing of the magazine Klactoveedsedsteen and editor Carl Weissner’s relationships with a community of writers around the world. The records are organized in a single series, Production Files, 1965-1969, spanning four issues of the magazine. Issue 2 is not represented in these files.

The bulk of the material consists of manuscripts submitted to Weissner for publication, but roughly half of these manuscripts were never published in Klacto. Manuscripts represent the work of Carol Bergé, Doug Blazek, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Diane Di Prima, Larry Eigner, Allen Ginsberg, Dick Higgins, Gerard Malanga, Harold Norse, and several others. Letters from these writers commenting upon their work and the magazine are also included, several of which appeared in Klacto. Since many of the writers published their own magazines and anthologies, the pieces not accepted for publication may have been published elsewhere. A complete index of correspondents and works follows the container list in this guide. Titles of works in quotation marks indicate that they appeared in Klacto or, according to the author, had been previously published.

Layout and production materials exist for two issues: paste-ups and printing negatives for the cover and several pages of Issue 1; and paste-ups and some original artwork that appeared in Issue 23 (5). The Ransom Center Library holds single copies of Issues 1, 2, 3, 4, and 23 (5).

Return to the Table of Contents

Restrictions

Access:

Open for research

Return to the Table of Contents

Administrative Information

Acquisition:

Purchase,1970 (R5082)

Processed by:

Matthew Darby, 1999

Return to the Table of Contents

Container List

Return to the Table of Contents

 Index of Correspondents 

Names in bold appear in the RLIN record.

Return to the Table of Contents

 Index of Works 

Return to the Table of Contents