Editions of TP's short stories

[Mascaro at humnet.ucla.edu]

Dear Pynchon-elves,

	Here's a Friday query about other editions of TRP's short stories.  Back in 
1976 or 77 a now departed friend brought me from England a marvelous 
present.  Two Pynchon short stories  published separately in booklet form.  
One of them, I think it was "Under the Rose," immediately 
disappeared-undoubtedly liberated by one of the innumerable ne'er-do-well 
friends of my dissolute halycon grad school years. The other I still have: a 
copy of "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna."  It is a beautiful little booklet.  
Off-sized, about 5 3/4" X  8 1/4", the cover is white, matte paper not much 
thicker than the rest of the pages, with the title and author's name in all 
lower case typescript across the top in three lines.

In the center of the cover there is a B&W photograph, actually a detail of a 
photo the rest of which whites out into the blank white of the cover.  
What's visible is a tall and (interestingly) quite slender young man, 
striding purposefully at a 3/4 profile, in some urban setting (there are 
bars or columns or something on a building just barely visible behind him, a 
window or facade or something).  He's wearing cowboy boots (the kind w/ the 
ring at the ankle), jeans w/ cuffs turned up at least 2 inches, dark shirt 
and a whitish sport coat, very narrow lapels. Looking real sharp, in that 
boho way. His head is bent forward.  Directly in front of his face 
(NATCH--you KNEW this was coming) he's holding, in his right hand, with long 
tapering fingers splayed across it,  a ms. sized envelope, completely 
blocking any view of his face from hairline down to shirt pocket.  A shock 
of thick, close cut dark hair is visible above the upper edge of the 
envelope.  Across the bottom of the cover it says "aloe books"  and 
"london."  The booklet is staple bound, 24 pages unpaginated.  The paper is 
very thin. 

There is a frontespiece which is also fascinating.  A B&W photo of the torn 
out title page of some unknown book, its title, author and publisher blacked 
out w/ thick marker strokes exactly like the ones they use when they censor 
documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, only not completely 
opaque, so that an odd word or two is readable: the word "Contract" in the 
title, and below that  "By 'Griff' "; typed over this original title is 
"mortality and mercy in vienna" and below that, "thomas pynchon" in the same 
lower case typeface as the cover.

There's no date of publication.  On the back of the last page it says "First 
published in EPOCH in Spring 1959 Vol IX no. 4,"  below that "Cover 
photograph by Jim Pennington," and below that "ISBN 0 85652 023 3."

SO:

Does anybody know anything about these editions? (John Krafft, does your 
Magus-like knowledge ken a whit on any of this stuff?)
Or aloe books?
Or other editions of early short stories published before SLOW LEARNER?
Or who Jim Pennington might be?

I wish I knew how I could scan that photo on to this net.  It is so 
enigmatic and mesmerizing.  Gotta be . . . .

Cabals,

John Mascaro