I Celebrate Myself; The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg

New York: Viking, 2006. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xv, [3], 702 pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Sources and Notes. Selected Bibliography. Index. Signed by the author on the title page. Black mark on bottom edge. DJ is in a plastic sleeve. Autographed copy sticker on front of DJ. Bill Morgan is the author and editor of more than a dozen books about the Beat writers, including the acclaimed biography, I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg. For nearly forty years he has worked as an editor and archival consultant for nearly every member of the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Diane Di Prima, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, and Edie Kerouac. Irwin Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 - April 5, 1997) was an American poet, philosopher, and writer. He was one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation during the 1950s and the counterculture that soon followed. He opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression and was known as embodying various aspects of this counterculture, such as his views on drugs and hostility to bureaucracy. He was one of many writers known as the Beat Generation, which included writers such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. Ginsberg is best known for his poem "Howl", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity. "Howl", in 1957, attracted widespread publicity when it became the subject of an obscenity trial. Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that "Howl" was not obscene. Ginsberg took part in decades of non-violent protest against everything from the Vietnam War to the War on Drugs. His collection The Fall of America shared the annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. In 1979 he received the National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995.