Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (Vol. 111) - Larry Smith (review date September 1995)

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

Larry Smith (review date September 1995)

SOURCE: A review of "Pictures of the Gone World," in Small Press Review, Vol. 27, No. 9, September 1995, p. 12.

[Smith reviews the revised edition of Pictures of the Gone World, and discusses the impact of Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore and New Directions Paperbacks.]

One of the classics of contemporary small press publishing, Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Pictures Of The Gone World (Revised) is ripe with legend. Just as Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin, his pop culture partner, were able to birth the first American all paperback bookstore in 1953—The City Lights Bookshop—so Ferlinghetti was soon able to send forth the first of City Lights Books in his slim Pictures Of The Gone World (1955, forty years ago). Pictures also launched City Lights influential Pocket Poets Series (modeled after the inexpensive French books and a letterpress edition of Kenneth Patchen's An...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. John William Corrington (essay date 1965)
   2. James A. Butler (review date Spring 1966)
   3. Alex Raksin (review date 4 September 1988)
   4. Patrick Burnson (review date Fall 1988)
   5. Michael Leddy (review date Autumn 1989)
   6. Gregory Stephenson (essay date 1990)
   7. Tony Curtis (interview date Summer 1992)
   8. Larry Smith (review date September 1995)
4. Further Readings
5. Copyright