It All Started With a 'Howl': City Lights Publishers Celebrates 60 Years

Back in the 1950s, a thin book of poetry sparked a police raid of a San Francisco bookstore and a landmark court trial over selling “obscene” material. That book, “Howl & Other Poems” by Allen Ginsberg, put City Lights Publishers and its owner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, on the literary map. This year, City Lights Publishers celebrates its 60th anniversary. We look back on its storied history and on its current place in the publishing world.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, at 95 from KQED News on Vimeo.

• More: At 95, Lawrence Ferlinghetti Recounts More Than Six Decades of Life in San Francisco
• More: About City Lights Publishers (official website)