Since selling its first book at 75 cents a copy in 1955, City Lights Publishers has made its mark on the literary world, and during BEA on May 28, Publishers Weekly took notice. The story in Publishers Weekly outlined the landmarks in City Lights’s 60 years of impact.
Allen Ginsberg, courtesy of Wikipedia
From Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, to the ensuing obscenity trial which cemented City Lights “as a defender of free speech and a publisher of innovative literature,” this publisher has been in the business of pushing literary boundaries.
The recent Rad American Women A–Z, which “hit the #5 spot on the New York Times bestseller list on May 17, in the children’s middle-grade category,” shows that City Lights has plenty left to say.
In celebration of its 60th Anniversary, City Lights is featuring five titles:
- Pictures of the Gone World: 60th Anniversary Edition
- City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology: 60th Anniversary Edition
- I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955–1997
- a new, expanded edition of Hiparama of the Classics
- a 25th anniversary edition of Shock Treatment
City Lights Bookstore, courtesy of Jelenpub.com
With Rad American Women: A-Z raging through the bestseller lists, City Lights Publishers is tipping the iceberg toward decades more of radical publishing.