Malicious Damage

by Ilsa Colsell

In 1962, a then unknown couple, John (Joe) Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, were tried at Old Street Magistrates Court, London, charged with, 'larceny, malicious damage and wilful damage', involving hundreds of Islington Library's book stock. The pair would receive a six-month custodial sentence for these actions. The reconfigured dust jackets were part of a decade of often shared creative endeavour; the two had written, collaged and entertained themselves with the combined fragments of Arts history and contemporary culture. This small flat their studio and living space, and where they enacted a loving relationship at a time when homosexuality was forbidden by law 'in public and in private'. Their arrest and trial would be an abrupt curtailment of this private idyll and a turning point in their lives, setting them separately (though never entirely separated) on a path which would lead John to become Joe Orton, one of the fashionable playwrights of sixties London. Halliwell pursued his own creative path with further collage - but did so without fully finding an audience for his artwork to match Orton's rapid theatrical success. Their deaths at Noel Road five years later in 1967 became the sensationalised end to what had largely been a private, enclosed life together; Orton murdered by Halliwell who then took his own life. Now, fifty years after the trial, Malicious Damage looks closely at the collaged dust jackets still remaining within the archive at Islington Local History Centre and focuses on the early collaborative nature of Orton and Halliwell's relationship. Using the changing collage that had consumed such a large part of their lives in Noel Road as its frame, Malicious Damage underlines the visual and performative nature of their collaborations, as well as using the process of collage itself to investigate Halliwell and his work in greater detail.

186 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2013

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found a copy of this book at the always amazing Printed Matter in Chelsea New York City. "Malicious Damage is a collection of defaced library books belonging to the Islington London Library, but re-imagined by Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton. What they would do is either steal or 'borrow' library books, take them home and alter them in some fashion. Then return them to the library. Sort of a Brirish version of situationist activity but through a very 'queer' aesthetic from these two giants of post-war London culture.

We don't only get an amazing reproduction of all the books, but also a detailed image of Orton and Halliwell's flat in Islington. A famous location due that Orton was killed by Halliwell here, but more positive reason is that Halliwell and Orton made colleges on their walls, from floor to ceiling. The photograph of the interior is pretty fantastic, and was taken by the police at the time they got arrested for defacing library books.

Included are super essays by Ilsa Colsell and the always excellent Philip Hoare. The foreword is by Joe's sister Leonie Orton Barnett. Short, sweet, and fascinating that Orton's habit of taking things that not belong to him, actually runs through his family. Orton and Halliwell were right between 1950's post-war GB culture and the gates of swinging 60's London culture. But their lives were lived in the grays, when homosexuality was literally against the law. A shadowy world that their neighbor Joe Meek shared as well. This is a superb book, and may be difficult to find. The only two places where I found copies of this book are Printed Matter and the Strand. Both in New York. I strongly recommend anyone who is either an Orton fan (and you should be) or have an interest in 'Queer' London cultural history. Pretty much an essential book to own and enjoy.

[Ichor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malicious Damage is an account of one of the most intriguing events in book lore: the campaign by upstart playwrights Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell to steal hundreds of books from London libraries in the 1960s, deface them as an act of criticism (both literary and against the library system itself) and then secretly return them to the stacks for unsuspecting patrons to find. Orton and Halliwell ended up serving hard time for their stunt, and the rest of their lives were no less interesting—Halliwell would eventually murder Orton with little indication of motivation. Colsell’s book recounts the intersecting arcs of Haliwell and Orton’s lives and lavishly presents many examples of their now-legendary defacements. It is somewhat ironic—and indicative of the nature of art—that the very library which zealously sought their prosecution in the 1960s now takes pride in having been the victim by putting on exhibitions, keeping an archive of the defacements and supporting books like this.