HOWL AND OTHER POEMS
Third printing (stated) - and first produced in the U.S. - of Ginsberg's landmark poem, number four in the Pocket Poets Series.
Very good.
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness..."
While the first two printings of HOWL were produced in London by Villiers, when U.S. Customs seized more than 500 copies of the latter printing for alleged obscenity (leading to one of the most important censorship trials of the 20th century), publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti printed this third domestically, bringing the book out from under the jurisdiction of Customs - a fact conspicuously noted on the copyright page, which clearly states "Manufactured in the United States of America." A significant copy from early in the history of this landmark poem that along with Kerouac's ON THE ROAD and Burroughs's NAKED LUNCH form the cornerstones of the Beat movement. It remains Ginsberg's most enduring work.
Read more: Bill Morgan, The Works of Allen Ginsberg: 1941-1994, A3.a1.3; Ralph Cook, City Lights Books : a Descriptive Bibliography, 21.
San Francisco: The City Lights Pocket Bookshop, [1957]. 6.25'' x 5''. Original stiff black stapled wrappers (75 cents). 44 pages. Introduction by William Carlos Williams. Covers rubbed and toned with a bit of spotting. Else sound and clean.