review copy of the first edition, first issue, signed twice by ginsberg, once on title-page and again on publisher's review slip. Dedication includes Lucien Carr, whose name was removed in subsequent printings. Other points include printed price of 75 cents on rear cover which also contains 20 lines of text and an erroneous period in place of a comma in line 18.
a landmark of twentieth century poetry and ginsberg's poetic legacy, celebrating its 55th anniversary this year. "Early in the following year Howl and Other Poems was published with an introduction by William Carlos Williams as number four in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series. In May 1956 copies of the small black-and-white stapled paperback were seized by the San Francisco police, who arrested Ferlinghetti and Shigeyoshi Murao, his shop manager, and charged them with publishing and selling an obscene and indecent book. The American Civil Liberties Union took up the defense of Ginsberg's poem in a highly publicized obscenity trial in San Francisco, which concluded in October 1957 when Judge Clayton Horn ruled that Howl had redeeming social value"-- American National Biography.