First editions of early Beats books

 

Robert LaVigne (American, 1928 – 2014)
Gasoline, 1957
oil on masonite with metal foil edging
Robert A. Wilson Collection

Robert LaVigne painted this unique sign for the publication of Gregory Corso’s Gasoline, part of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Pocket Poets Series. Although the circumstances of its production are obscure, it seems to have been displayed at City Lights in conjunction with a poetry reading at the book’s unveiling. As a work of art, it is prescient of the Pop Art movement that emerged five years later, which often focused on signage and visual text.

John Clellon Holmes
Go, 1952
C. Scribner’s Sons, New York

William Lee [William S. Burroughs]
Junkie, 1953
Ace Books, New York

Michael McClure
Ghost Tantras, 1964
Villers publications LTD. City Lights, San Francisco

Jack Micheline
River of Red Wine: and Other Poems, intro by Jack Kerouac,
1958
Troubador Press, New York

Neal Cassady
The First Third & Other Writings, 1971
City Lights, San Francisco

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Pictures of the Gone World, 1955
City Lights Books, San Francisco, Pocket Poets Series no. 1

Jack Kerouac
The Dharma Bums, 1958
Viking Press, New York

Gregory Corso
Gasoline, 1958
City Lights Books, San Francisco. Pocket Poets Series no. 8

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
A Coney Island of the Mind, 1958
New Directions, New York

Bob Kaufman
Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness, 1965
New Directions, New York

Jack Kerouac
Mexico City Blues, 1959
Grove Press, New York

Allen Ginsberg
Kaddish and Other Poems, 1961
City Lights Books, San Francisco. Pocket Poets Series no. 14

Bob Kaufman
Golden Sardine, 1967
City Lights Books, San Francisco. Pocket Poets Series no. 21

Peter Orlovsky
Clean Asshole Poems & Smiling Vegetable Songs, 1978
City Lights Books, San Francisco. Pocket Poets Series no. 37

Gary Snyder
Riprap, 1959
Origin Press, Kyoto. Distributed by City Lights Books, San Francisco
City Lights Books, San Francisco. Pocket Poets Series no. 21