Gasoline (1958) Signed First Edition Reference

Gasoline was published by City Lights Books in 1958 as number eight in the Pocket Poets Series, with an introduction by Allen Ginsberg. The collection brought Corso’s raw, surrealist, streetwise poetry to the same audience that had embraced Howl, and it established him as the third member of the Beat triumvirate alongside Ginsberg and Kerouac.

The Book

Ginsberg’s introduction places Corso in the context of French surrealism and American visionary poetry, but the poems themselves resist easy categorization. Corso’s voice is wilder and more unpredictable than Ginsberg’s — his imagery leaps between registers with a freedom that can seem either brilliantly intuitive or chaotically undisciplined, depending on the reader’s tolerance for surrealist association.

The poems in Gasoline draw on Corso’s experiences in prison (where he educated himself by reading voraciously in the Dannemora library), his travels in Europe, and his friendships with the other Beats. They are short, intense, and imagistically dense — the work of a natural poet who never lost the outsider’s perspective.

First Edition Identification

Publisher: City Lights Books, San Francisco (Pocket Poets Series, Number Eight) Publication date: 1958 Format: Small paperback, Pocket Poets format Introduction: By Allen Ginsberg Price: 75 cents (early printings)

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first edition: $400–$1,200
• Inscribed copies: $600–$1,800
• Unsigned first edition: $75–$200
• Unsigned later printings: $10–$25

The Ginsberg introduction adds cross-collecting appeal. A signed copy bearing both Corso’s and Ginsberg’s signatures — which exists in small numbers — commands a significant premium over a Corso-only signature.

Collecting Context

Gasoline is the essential Corso first edition — the book that captures his youthful energy and establishes his distinctive voice. Its City Lights Pocket Poets format places it in the same physical tradition as Howl and Pictures of the Gone World, making it a natural component of any comprehensive Beat collection.