Burnside Rare Books

Pictures of the Gone World [First copy of the first City Lights book]

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence

San Francisco: The City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1955.

A copy of great historical significance: the very first copy of the first book ever published by City Lights.

First edition, first printing. Signed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the title page, inscribed, simply, "Lawrence Ferlinghetti / August 5, 1955 / (first copy)." Bound in publisher's stapled pages into perfect bound black wraps with yellow card wraparound printed in black. Very Good with wear and soiling to wraps, chipping to yellow card wraparound at spine and edges, contents tanned. A one-of-a-kind, very special copy.

The author's first book and the first title in The Pocket Poets Series, originally published in a print run of 500 copies. The San Francisco bookshop and publisher would establish the Beat movement in popular consciousness with the fourth volume of The Pocket Poets series, Allen Ginsberg's watershed poetry collection Howl and Other Poems, with its now iconic cover design of black stapled wraps with a glued-on white title label to hide the staples. A subsequent obscenity trial and the rise of the Beats individually and collectively followed. Their movement is now regarded as a crucial turning point in 20th century American culture, defining the spirit of rebellion and the search for authenticity of the second half of the 20th century around the world.

This remarkable copy, dubbed the very first by its author in his inscription, symbolizes a physical manifestation of ground zero-- the starting point-- of the cultural revolution City Lights Books spearheaded. Item #140945421

Price: $17,500