Howl and other poems. The Pocket Poets Series: Number Four. by GINSBERG, Allen

San Francisco: The City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1956. First published edition, first printing, with the spelling "Lucien Carr" in the dedication, and the eighth line of the second paragraph on the rear cover beginning "Harlem". The title poem Howl was in part a poem of love dedicated to Carl Solomon, a friend being held in a psychiatric institute, and caused much controversy for its explicit homoeroticism. This copy is from the library of contemporary San Francisco poet Jean McLean, and is signed "Jean and Jo Mclean" on page 4. Jean McLean's work was published in the poetry collection Seven Stray Cats in Sausalito in 1957, alongside poets such as Gerald Stern, Laura Uronovitz, and Ginsberg's close friend Jack Gilbert, with whom McLean collaborated on two erotic novels under the joint pseudonym Tor Kung. Howl and other poems was a landmark collection considered one of the principal works of literature that launched the Beat Generation. It was Ginsberg's first regularly published book, and was printed in a run of an estimated 1,500 copies. As is often found in the first edition of this work, each of the elided swear words have been carefully supplied in manuscript (pp. 12, 15, 17, and 29). Cook, pp. 21-22; Morgan A3.a1.1. Duodecimo. Original stiff black wrappers, stapled as issued, with a white hand-pasted wraparound paper label printed in black. Very minor rubbing to extremities, light browning to wraparound label, edges faintly toned as often; nevertheless a very good copy indeed.