For the Plaid Adder's Snake Bites can we all do a Shep's "I, Libertine"

For the Plaid Adder's Snake Bites can we all do a Shep's "I, Libertine" by Jean Shephard.

It was a best seller and also banned, mentioned in Pravda (soviet) and it NEVER existed !!!





links about Shep and an audio interview link at end of post

the following snipped from the page at http://bobkaye.com/ilibertine.html

At about 2 am one night, Shep said to his listeners, "let's all go to the local book stores tomorrow and ask for a book, that we, the Night People, know doesn't exist." Since it was a communal thing, he asked the listeners for suggestions for a title. Finally, at about 4:30 am someone came up with "I, Libertine". Shep then created an author, Frederick R. Ewing, formerly a British Commander in World War II, now a civil servant in Rhodesia, married to Marjorie, a horsewoman from the North Country. He was best known for his BBC broadcasts, on 18th century erotica. He was published by Excelsior Press, an imprint of Cambridge University. Now who's gonna argue with that? British--Cambridge--a wife named Marjorie?
So what's next? The first guy walks into the store and asks for "I, Libertine". The owner says he never heard of it. Man number two walks in asking for it. Now he says "it's on order." The next guy comes in. Now he's on the phone to the distributor. " Well, after 350 more guys ask for it, Publisher's Weekly is in shambles!"
You must remember that the listeners KNEW that this was a nonexistent book!

By the next day, reports started to come back. One guy said:
"For years this guy in the 8th Street Bookshop had me buffaloed. You got the feeling that HE actually wrote Kierkegaard! That he was behind Spinoza! If I mentioned Proust he would say, 'the trouble with Proust was that he never matured.' So I asked him about Ewing and "I, Libertine". 'It's about time the public discovered him!' I had him! It was great!

A woman at her bridge party mentioned it. Immediately a discussion broke out and three women decided that they hated it!
Airline pilots, who were listeners, started asking for it all over the world. Then a kid who was going to Rutgers wrote Shep: "I'm taking this course in the History of English Writing. I did my term paper on F. R. Ewing, British Historian, with footnotes and quotes from the BBC broadcasts. I got a B+ and the professor wrote 'Superb Research!' My God, maybe there was no Chaucer! It could have been some guy 400 years ago putting on the whole world!

Then, in Earl Wilson's column appeared a blurb, "had lunch with Freddy Ewing yesterday." The PR people who fed the columns were also Shep listeners! It was even reviewed by one of the major book supplements of the time! The reviewers were also fans, and Shep told all the listeners to "put your little hooks in, wherever you can."

As Shep said, "I felt like a guy at the bottom of a mountain who threw a couple of pebbles up and suddenly a 400 trillion ton avalanche falls on him!" Comments continued to appear all over in newspapers. One guy's boss asked him what he thought of the book. Did he read it? "What could I say?"
Shep said he was afraid the the President would mention it. "Then I wouldn't believe in anything!"

There were articles in Life, Newsweek and Time, however the ultimate was yet to come.
It was placed on the proscribed list by the Arch Diocese of Boston! Banned in Boston!! At the end of the 7th week it was on a nation-wide best-seller list! It was now a best seller in Rome, Paris, London. Remember, the people asking for this KNEW that it didn't exist.

continues at http://bobkaye.com/ilibertine.html


long but well well worth it for the Shep fans , 1968 tape of Shep being interviewed on The Long John Nebel Show on WOR in New York. about "I, Libertine" very detailed, This will have you rolling on the floor. The first 30 minuets of the 45 minuet file Jean went over "I, Libertine"
35meg MP3 download
http://s93582230.onlinehome.us/lpublic/ilibertine.mp3

For those who are unaware of who Jean Shepherd was, a little background http://bobkaye.com/Shep.html you can read latter


note the bobkaye is not my site , the mp3 site is mine

--is there any way to get the book without going through PayPal?

For your listening pleasure:
http://www.flicklives.com/Mass_Back/mass_back.htm

while I'm a fan . I realize many here never heard of him,