Stealing the Limelight

Abstract

The year 1969 was pivotal in Bukowski’s career, arguably the most crucial of the decade, and an unquestionable turning point in his life. The four main books released that year, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, Penguin Modern Poets, The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills, and A Bukowski Sampler, could be considered the culmination of all his previously published material in little magazines and underground newspapers. Bukowski’s stubbornness to be acknowledged for his literary efforts in the alternative publishing scene was finally rewarded on an international scale. The first lengthy scholarly and bibliographic studies of Bukowski’s work, Hugh Fox’s Charles Bukowski: A Critical and Bibliographical Study, and Sanford Dorbin’s A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski, provided further recognition. Institutional acceptance came about late in 1969, when UCSB acquired the first installment of his material for their archives. His perennially prolific output was not disrupted by his newfound popularity and success; quite the opposite, he bombarded the littles and underground papers with renewed energy and pertinacity. Foreign periodicals were not alien to his increasing fame, and his poetry and fiction were promoted in Europe and India.