I ME MINE

BY GEORGE HARRISON

'a beautiful, hand-bound, dignified volume.'
The News, Sydney

'No one who buys this book is going to be sorry in years to come.'
The Write Thing

'Now, there is the quiet Beatle, George, making the biggest statement of any of the Fab Four'.
Daily Telegraph, Sydney

'An exquisitely packaged confection of thoughts, memories, snapshots and, above all, lyrics'.
The Daily Telegraph, London

The book that changed our direction from publishing voyages of exploration to rock and roll. Our first of several collaborations with the late George Harrison. Every one was a highly pleasurable experience. George was a wonderful human being and a great friend to Genesis Publications, and is missed enormously.

I Me Mine was published in 1980, the culmination of several years work. It contains 83 of George's song lyrics printed in superb facsimile with the story behind each one in the composer's words. It was printed in 28 special colours by Kingprint of Richmond, sadly no longer in business. George visited Kingprint to view the first sheets coming off the press. Muffled screams could be heard from the bindery girls as his Porsche drew into the carpark. One of the workers had a small kestrel which perched calmly on George's outstretched hand for several minutes as he stood beside the printing press. Did all that really happen?

Derek Taylor, George Harrison and Brian Roylance visit the printers during the production of I Me Mine.		George Harrison and kestrel!

Bookbinders in Oxford, Bristol, London and Edinburgh needed to be employed to keep up with the demand. Copies of I Me Mine were bound in light and dark brown leathers, and light and dark green, black and a small variety of other colours. Brian Roylance recalls loading unbound copies into his car and driving them to a remote workshop in East Anglia as this was the only place that could cope with the gilding of the page edges.

The edition, limited to 2,000 signed copies sold out soon after publication. It was subsequently published in hardback and paperback in black ink only by Simon and Schuster in New York and by W H Allen in London, and re-published with a new Foreword from Olivia Harrison by Chronicle Books in San Francisco in 2002.

The limited edition of I Me Mine now fetches considerable sums at auction, with sale prices known to have reached more than ten times the original pre-publication price.

ISBN: 0 904351 07 6