Elizabeth Wurtzel and Caroline Calloway's Guide to Life (Luxury First Edition)

This is not just the first book about Elizabeth Wurtzel since her death four years ago—this is currently the ONLY book about Elizabeth Wurtzel on the market.

(Coming in October and yes, we ship books out in the order that orders are placed! The sooner you place your order, the close to the front of the line you'll be!)

When Elizabeth Wurtzel died from breast cancer in January of 2020 at only 52 years-old, the author that The New York Times once called as 'The Depression Princess' and 'Sylvia Plath with the ego of Madonna' was showered with glowing obituaries. People suddenly loved her once she was gone in a way that the public never had while she was alive and writing. Since then? Silence. No biographies about Elizabeth Wurtzel have been published, no collections of her previously unseen essays have been assembled. Hell, at this point—I'm not even demanding we find her unfinished manuscripts and release them! (Although I really hope this book inspires someone to do that.) When I realized that I'd settle for ANYTHING in book-format that celebrated her existence, I knew it was time to take matters into my own hands. The woman that basically invented the "twenty-nothing" memoir and single handedly tennis-served the first-person confessional essay into the forefront of the collective cultural psyche, deserved more than an ugly book destined to be forgotten the press and remain unpurchased by all but her most die-hard fans.

And so I decided to take the spotlight of the internet that's upon me, the talent of my graphic designer and long-time collaborator, Sam West, some of Elizabeth Wurtzel's best advice, and some of my own, and make the Elizabeth Wurtzel book of my goddamn dreams.

It's beautiful. It's informative. It's juicy. It's dark. It may or may not be full of typos and I can guarantee you it's full of the most gorgeous, irreverent, downright heartbreaking illustrations you've ever seen in your book-reading life. In short, it's the kind of Sad Literary Girl Collector's item that I myself spent years pining for until I made this.

Some backstory: In 1999, Elizabeth Wurtzel published a little known and largely forgotten advice book titled The Secret of Life (What a title!!!!!!)—which has been out of print for over two decades now. Her main book that she's remembered for is Prozac Nation, although my favorite is More, Now Again, but I digress. In Elizabeth Wurtzel and Caroline Calloway’s Guide to Life, I'm quoting excerpts of her best advice with original edits, footnotes and illustrations. The majority of this new book, however, is chapters of my own advice combined with two never-before-seen essays. The first is about what I'm calling “The Great American Cambridge Sads”—Wurtzel, Plath, Sexton, Maguso, Westover, and Jamison among them. The final essay is my own take on an Elizabeth Wurtzel biography—just something to hold us Sad Literary Girls over until someone more scholarly among us can get an updated and improved bio circulated in book form. 

Are the next two books in the Instagram Trilogy coming? YES. They will be books three and four, but once I started spiraling about how the legacy of Elizabeth Wurtzel is being ignored by traditional publishers I couldn't stop. This is my second book because I tried to ignore this side quest and fucking couldn't. I feel so passionately about her writing and how everyone should read it, it makes me want to tear out my hair and scream sometimes. And so, without further ado: I present to you my second book and all you will receive with a Luxury First Edition!

📚 Custom 'Favorite Books' STICKER SHEET (New!)

• We heard you about the Scammer packages and how you'd prefer to have those stickers on sheets instead of on the packages. Prayers answered! Introducing the first ever ~sticker sheet~ fresh from CC HQ because there really aren't enough Sylvia Plath themed stickers in this world and we're here to fix that.

💪🏻 FOUR Custom Temporary Tattoos (New!)

• Four of Sam West's PHENOMENAL illustrations have been turned into the cutest little temporary tattoos!

👹 "THE FUCK-UP" Sticker (New!)

• You'll understand when it arrives... Until then just know that it will match VERY well with your SCAMMER Tarot Card sticker. 

✍🏻 Hand-Signed

• Each Luxury First Edition comes signed by me! It's not a print. It's not a stamp of my signature. I'm hand-signing each Luxury First Edition and, boy! WHAT A DUMB DECISION I MADE BY COMMITTING TO THIS PLAN! I don't have health insurance and I will absolutely be paying for carpal tunnel treatment out-of-pocket someday.

💯 Hand-Numbered

• Every Luxury First Edition comes with a handwritten number indicating exactly where your book lies numerically in the printing! The sooner you order, the lower the number of your Luxury First Edition will be! (And therefore more valuable if your thot grand-daughters or gay great-grand-sons ever decide to sell your first edition at auction someday...)

🖼️ Illustrated

• This is the first book I've ever released with illustrations—all of which have been brought to life by the inimitable, the irreplaceable, the one and only: Sam West! (She's @_swest on Instagram if you want to ask her for tattoo permission. Her drawings are that good. You might not just need these in a book, but permanently on your body!) Our inspiration for illustrating this book was 'a fairy tale for adults.' Or 'a YA book from the nineties for the women those readers grew into. Or 'a New Yorker cartoon that fucks.'

💌 Custom Thank You Card

• "Thank you for being a goddamn patron of the arts!" is what all notes say. And Matisse and I really DO appreciate your patronage and patience and high tolerance for chaos! 
  

📬 Custom Packaging

• That's right, bitch! "Packed in sunny Florida with care and chaos" and we even have the custom envelopes to prove it! Do not believe for even a moment than any detail of these new Luxury First Editions was too small for us to consider.

🔥 Custom Ex Libris Book-Plate

•  Have you ever seen those Ex Libris book-plates in old, rare, possibly haunted books of yore? Ex Libris means "From the Library of" and I sincerely hope you feel like an aristocrat when you write your name down and claim this copy as your own.

🎀 Satin Ribbon

• I hope to God you think of me when you wear this little bow in your hair. More importantly, I hope that when people say, "I like your bow!" You reply without missing a beat, "Thank you so much! Caroline Calloway actually gave it to me!"