Richard Brautigan gained prominence in the sixties as one of the most celebrated of the hippie writers, but he migrated to San Francisco from his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, at the height of the Beat movement in the late fifties. Here he published several books of poetry in small presses, drawing his inspiration mainly from nineteenth century French poets. Brautigan's first published work, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, depicts the French poet Baudelaire hitch-hiking through America.