“AN ATTEMPT TO RECORD AND GLORIFY THE AMERICAN BIKERIDER”
LYON, Danny. The Bikeriders. New York: Macmillan, (1968). Octavo, original illustrated stiff paper covers.
First soft-bound edition of this classic photo-essay on motorcycle gangs, with 48 full-page duotones, published the same year as the cloth-bound edition. From the library of Peter Turnley.
“In his book The Bikeriders Lyon defined a new kind of photographer, a combination witness and participant. He embodied the idea of the rebel with a camera, the photographer documenting an ‘outsider’ community who was himself a member of that community” (Parr & Badger II, 18). Lyon joined the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club in 1963 and began making photographs and tape recordings of its members through 1967. “Danny Lyon’s early work has a definite Woodstock-to-Altamont trajectory. He went from being the staff photographer of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, documenting the early ‘60s civil rights movement… to being the staff photographer of the Chicago Outlaws motorcyclist’s club, documenting the violent subculture of early biker gangs” (Roth, 190). In Lyon’s words, “It is what I have come to believe is the spirit of the bikeriders: the spirit of the hand that twists open the throttle on the crackling engines of the big bikes.” Parr & Badger I:256. Open Book, 236. From the collection of Peter Turnley, acclaimed photojournalist for Newsweek, Life and Harper’s Magazine, who has covered “almost every important international news event of the last 15 years” (New York Times).
Interior fine. Light edge-wear to original paper covers.