David Solomon papers

David Solomon was born in California in 1925.  He served in World War II and was pulled from combat and re-assigned to intelligence work after his two and only brothers were killed in bombing runs over Germany.  He was discharged in 1946 and attended Washington Square College of New York University on the GI Bill; Solomon eventually earned his BA from Washington Square College.  He remained in the Village, married and had two children.  Solomon became an assistant editor at Esquire in the mid-1950s and worked with writers such as Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Allen Gingsberg.  In 1960, he became editor of Metronome and was friends with Dizzy Gillespie, Nat Henthoff, Earl Robinson, and Perry Robinson.  By the early 1960s, Solomon became the literary editor for Playboy and published Ram Das (Richard Alpert), Alan Watts, Timothy Leary and Humphry Osmond.  He also edited LSD – the Conscious Expanding Drug (1964) and The Marijuana Papers (1966) and co-edited Drugs and Sexuality (1973) and The Coca Leaf and Cocaine Papers (1975).  On April 26, 2007, Solomon died at the age of 81.

Sources: “David Solomon, jazz critic, drug guru, 81.” The Villager. Volume 77, Number 9. 14 December 2011. http://www.thevillager.com/villager_222/davidsalomomjaz.html “William Burroughs and David Solomon.” Reality Studio. 14 December 2011. http://reality.studio.org/bibliographic-bunker/william-burroughs-and -david-solomon/