After Allen Ginsberg's reading of "Howl" on October 6, 1955 at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti sent him a note, repeating Emerson's message to Whitman upon reading Leaves of Grass: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career." But Ferlinghetti added a line: "When do I get the manuscript?"
The first edition of <http://www.citylights.com/CLpubBC.html#0175>Howl, Number Four in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series, was printed in England by Villiers, passed through Customs without incident, and was published by Ferlinghetti at the City Lights Bookstore in the fall of 1956. (The first print run was 1,000 copies, a letterpress edition. Originally sold at 75 cents each, a first-edition copy is now worth several thousand dollars.)
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