GINSBERG, Allen Howl San Fransisco, City Lights Books, 1957
Small 4vo. Original black and white card wrappers; inside front and rear covers black; Saddle-stiched and stapled binding; pp. [4] 7-44 ; Front and back wrappers lightly toned with minor stain on front wrapper; rubbing on the binding, otherwise very good.
Sixth Printing of an iconic printing
"Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors from their jambs!"…
An early issue of the quintessential poetry collection from this noted Beat author, with an introduction by William Carlos Williams. 'Howl' is one of the principle works of the Beat generation, but it was not without its controversy. For publishing the collection Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a beat poet in his own right, was arrested and charged with obscenity. After a very public trial Ferlinghetti was released, and another 5,000 copies were published to cope with the public demanded generated from the arrest. This fourth printing was ordered just one month after his acquittal.
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…" begins Allen Ginsberg's seminal long poem which established his title as a propehtic voice in America's counterculture. The poem placed the Beat Generation movement on a cleebrity stage after it was read at the Sixth Gallery in San Fransisco on October 7, 1955. Composed in the long line style reminsicne of Walt Whitman, the poem grieves what society what society has become. Ginsberg described his method of spontaneous writing as; “Hebraic-Melvillian bardic breath,” and Howl and Other Poems is the ultimate beginning introduction to a poet with immense influence on generations of writers and those to come.
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