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The Digger Papers
[Free and Realist editions]

August 1968

In the summer of 1968, the Diggers produced their final collective publication and gave it away as a gift to the world. Emmett made a deal with Paul Krassner to print 40,000 copies for the Diggers' Free edition, in exchange for using the inside and back cover for Issue No. 81 of The Realist. Thus there were two editions of The Digger Papers. To this day, both are in rare supply, although the Free edition is highly sought after by collectors.

The Digger Papers combined new articles with some of the best pieces that had appeared on the street over the previous two years. The centerpiece of the collection, The Post-Competitive, Comparative Game of a Free City was the summation of the Digger/Free City philosophy, while the classic Digger manifesto, Trip Without A Ticket made its reappearance here.

I will reprint all of the pages from The Digger Papers, as well as the frontispiece that appeared only in the Realist edition. If any readers of this archive would care to provide information about this publication, I would like to add anything pertinent to these pages. Please contact me by email or otherwise.

Above, the cover to the Free edition of The Digger Papers.
Below, the cover to the Realist edition.

Memo to the Reader

Realist-edition front cover
Click here for full text.

The only difference between the Free and the Realist editions of The Digger Papers was the cover. The large graphic of the Hopi Indian Running Man symbol, which dominated the Free cover, was shrunk to one corner. The Realist's logo, return address block, and colophon all occupied the other three corners. The most interesting difference between the two editions, though, was the Memo to the Reader which, from a historian's perspective, provides vital clues to the influences that the Diggers acknowledged.