The Beat Generation were a group of American writers who first met at Columbia University in the late 1940s and eventually ended up in San Francisco. They started out as friends but turned into a literary movement that revolutionized American fiction and poetry. Jack Kerouac is the one who first used the term Beat Generation in 1948  to describe he and his friends. Most of the Beats say they were influenced by the Romantic poets such as Percy Shelley, William Blake and John Keats. And they went on to influence rock and roll and popular culture in the 1960s and beyond.

The most famous of the Beat writers are Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs (although Burroughs was more on the outskirts of the movement, more like the father figure) and Allan Ginsberg. Burroughs and Ginsberg both faced obscenity trials for their writings.

Some Beat Generation works

•  On the Road by Jack Kerouac
•  Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
• Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg