Originally published: San Francisco : City Lights Books, c1956.

The prophetic poem that launched a generation when it was first published in 1956 is here presented in a commemorative 40th Anniversary Edition. Originally published by City Lights Books in the Fall of 1956 and subsequently seized by U.S. customs and the San Francisco police, it was the subject of a long court trial at which a series of distinguished literary and academic witnesses persuaded the court that the title poem was not obscene and that it had "redeeming social significance." Thus was Howl and Other Poems freed to become possibly the most influential poetic work of the post World War II era, with over 1,000,000 copies now in print.--Adapted from page [4] of cover.