The Collected Works of Jim Morrison

Created in collaboration with the estate of Jim Morrison and inspired by a posthumously discovered list written by Morrison entitled "Plan for Book,” The Collected Works of Jim Morrison is a landmark publication featuring both published and unpublished poems, prose, and lyrics and more than 200 personal color and black-and-white photographs, drawings, journal excerpts, notes and lyrics in his own hand; plus a bound-in 16-page facsimile pamphlet of one of Morrison's self-published poems and a transcript of a poetry reading recorded on what would be his final birthday. "Morrison wrote that 'we had a great visitation of energy,' proclaimed that 'the ancient ones' time has come again,' urged readers to 'enter again the sweet forest/enter the hot dream.' While he deliberately drove down toad-squirmy backroads of primal terror, ecstasy was often naked in the shotgun seat, spinning jeweled pinwheels, peeling a peach.”—Tom Robbins, from his foreword, "Fireflies of the Apocalypse"

Jim Morrison was thrust into what he considered accidental stardom in the 1960s as the lead vocalist of The Doors. Fifty years after his passing his legend endures, inspiring legions of fans and musicians. But this electrifying performer who lit the world on fire considered himself foremost a writer, a talent brilliantly demonstrated in his vast output of poetry and song lyrics.

The Collected Works of Jim Morrison is the book Jim Morrison wanted to publish. This definitive opus of his creative output—designed by the renowned firm Pentagram—includes verse and prose poems; never-before-seen personal journal entries written in Morrison's own hand, drawings, unpublished work, revisions of previously published poetry, transcripts, published and unpublished song lyrics, and more. Accompanying them is the transcript of The Village Recorder tapes—the selection of poems Morrison recorded on his birthday on December 8, 1970.

This remarkable collector's item includes:

• Foreword by Tom Robbins
• Introduction by Anne Morrison Chewning
• Published Poems and Writings: Pony Express; Horse Latitudes; Eyes; The Anatomy of Rock; The Celebration of the Lizard; Dry Water
• Self-Published Poems and Writings: The New Creatures; The Lords: Notes on Vision; An American Prayer; Ode to LA While Thinking of Brian Jones, Deceased
• Selections from Notebooks, Journals, and Loose Pages: The American Night; Tape Noon; Miami Trial Notebooks; the Paris Journal; Notebook and Journal Poems; Loose Page Poems
• Poetry Recording Transcripts: The Elektra Tapes; The Village Recorder Tapes
• Film Treatment: The Hitchhiker
• Published and Unpublished Song Lyrics
• Epilogue: As I Look Back

An array of images from the Morrison archive—family photographs; candid pictures in the recording studio, on the road, both on stage and off; sketches and drawings; stills from Morrison's never-released film HWY.

Handwritten materials—excerpts from the numerous journals Morrison kept, including the notebook he wrote in while on trial in Miami and from his final days in Paris, as well as various excerpts, single pages, loose notes, and lyrics.