Heart of Glass: Equipment from The Stepfather of Ecstasy’s home laboratory
To put it bluntly, I am a bookseller who deals in sex, drugs, rock and roll and protest. I see many things in my travels that fall into one or perhaps two of those categories. Here is one that hits all four.
Carl Williams
Specialising in ephemera taken from the fringes of society - counterculture, the occult, and modern arts ranging from protest posters, sixties memorabilia and beyond – collector and dealer Carl R. Williams has worked with rare, radical and fascinating books and objects for over twenty years.
In his career, Williams has worked with Maggs Bros, on secondment to Julio Mario Santo Domingo’s LSD Library, as an independent dealer and, among other things, mounted small shows of Aktionsraum, Joseph Beuys and original calendar art from India.
Some of his stock can be seen in Shoreditch’s Blue Mountain School, having more recently taken valuation of Felix Dennis’s Oz archive for London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, subsequently acquired by the Performance Department of the V&A.
Here, in his own words, Williams discusses 3 pieces from his collection that nod to the margins of science, music culture and the mind…