City Lights Books

Inspired by the idea that new and great literature should be affordable, City Lights Books was the first bookstore in the U.S. to sell only paperbacks when it opened in San Francisco in 1953. Branching out into publishing in 1955, City Lights Books co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti sought out work free from the aridity of academia and steeped instead in the underground attitudes of the time: boundary-breaking poetry and prose inspired by jazz, drugs, and new manifestations of consciousness. Predictably, this approach landed City Lights Books in legal trouble and in 1957, thanks to Allen Ginsberg's game-changing poem Howl, Ferlinghetti was arrested on charges of selling obscene material. His subsequent courtroom victory not only cleared a path for new freedoms of expression, it transformed City Lights Books from a humble storefront into a powerful, internationally acknowledged icon for radical publishing. Fifty-plus years later, that reputation hasn't changed. Ever mindful of its mission to give voice to the unheard, City Lights Books continues to expand its reach, supporting, in poetry and prose, the voices of the counter-culture, while maintaining a vital connection to surrounding communities through literacy programs such as the City Lights Foundation. Soundly disproving the notion that art, activism, and commerce don't mix, City Lights Books remains a haven for literature and community, and a continuing hope for future generations of writers.