When The Evergreen Review first arrived on the scene in 1957, it shattered norms. Many writers now considered part of the literary canon were introduced to a broader American public in its pages—provocative innovators such as Susan Sontag, Denise Levertov, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Alexander Trocchi, Kenzaburō Ōe, and hundreds of others. What became clear was that The Evergreen Review was not merely a literary review: it was a cultural weapon, reshaping the outlook of the Beat Generation in a way no television show or magazine at the time came close to doing. The U.S. government thought so, too, and the Postmaster General repeatedly sued its publisher on various grounds, in large part to prevent the Review from reaching its intended audience.

The reverberations of The Evergreen Review are still being felt. But copies of the original issues of the magazine are hard to come by, and can fetch hundreds of dollars. Now, Foxrock Books—the publishing arm of the recently revived Evergreen Review—is pleased to offer carefully crafted facsimile paperback editions of the classic first three issues of the review.