Baron's Court, All Change (Beats Bums & Bohemians)

“Many novels are forgotten and more or less disappear from circulation. The majority of books to suffer this fate more than deserve it. A handful of them are classics and eventually find their way to wide circulation. One of the most famous examples of this is Les Chants de Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont, which made little impact upon publication but became a canonical example of modernist literature after being rediscovered and championed by the surrealists. Baron’s Court, All Change by Terry Taylor is a very different type of lost classic. It created a bigger splash upon publication than Maldoror, but by the late-sixties had faded from view and most people’s memories. It provides an accurate account of the drug subculture in London at the end of the fifties. The realism and hep talk of Baron’s Court shocked many readers when it first appeared in 1961, but would have raised far fewer eyebrows in the aftermath of the summer of love. That said, it is only more recently that it has become possible to appreciate its historical significance…”