In September, Taschen will publish Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s illustrated biography in six volumes, combined with a chronological selection of highlights from the seminal men’s magazine’s first 25 years (1953 to 1979). Limited to 1,500 numbered and signed copies, the six-volume set comes packaged in a luxurious Plexiglas box and costs $1,300. Beginning with Hef’s youth and his boyhood comic collection and ending with the height of Playboy’s success, the anthology is billed as “the most probing and intimate portrait of Hefner ever made.”
Hefner’s extensive participation and the inclusion of a wealth of memorabilia from his personal scrapbooks set this anthology apart from other Playboy books. The six volumes contain over 700 pages of autobiographical text about Hef’s youth, army days, first attempts as a cartoonist, early career, girlfriends, and Playboy’s launch, illustrated by original Hefner artwork and cartoons, correspondence, and a huge selection of archival photos, many previously unpublished.
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