On the Road. The Original Scroll. First Printing

Kerouac, Jack

ISBN 10: 184614020X / ISBN 13: 9781846140204

Published by London. Penguin Classics/Penguin Group, 2007

About this Item

London. Penguin Classics/Penguin Group. First Edition/First Printing (1 printed under first published 2007 to copyright page). Hard Cover. Condition is new with complete bellyband and original adhesive stickers. Decorated endpapers. Quarter bound black cloth spine over decorative manuscript boards. No dust jacket as issued. On the Road: The Original Scroll (Hardback) By Kerouac, Jack This is the original scroll: the first ever publication of Kerouac's original draft for the book - transcribed from the famous 'scroll': hundreds of typed pages which constitute the manuscript taped together by Kerouac himself. "On the Road" chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make 'On the Road' an inspirational work of lasting importance. A scarce first printing in fine condition. The boards will be protected with a new inert archival 100 micron sleeve which is removable. Please contact us if you would like any more information or additional images. Postage price quoted outside the UK is for a book up to 1kg using UPS. For books sent within the UK, there will be no extra charge for books up to 2kg which are sent by Royal Mail. Postage quoted in the UK is the actual cost (£3.45). All books are sent in protective packing and custom book box. If your book is intended as a gift, please let us know and we will gift wrap it free of charge with a card and any message.

Seller Inventory # 16MAY2023018

Bibliographic Details

• Title: On the Road. The Original Scroll. First Printing
• Publisher: London. Penguin Classics/Penguin Group
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 184614020X
• ISBN 13: 9781846140204
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Rare book

Review

A 50th anniversary hardcover edition of Kerouac’s classic novel that defined a generation

Few novels have had as profound an impact on American culture as On the Road. Pulsating with the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "beat" and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets, and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event that "set them free." Based on Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose four cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naïveté and wild abandon, and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up. This hardcover edition commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of the novel in 1957 and will be a must-have for any literature lover.

Celebrating 50 Years of On the Road

In three weeks in a Manhattan apartment in April 1951, Jack Kerouac wrote his first satisfactory draft of On the Road as a single, 120-foot scroll. On the Road: The Original Scroll prints the text of this remarkable literary artifact in book form.

Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think): John Leland, author of Hip: A History, argues that On the Road still matters not for its youthful rebellion but because it is full of lessons about how to grow up.

From the back cover of On the Road: The Original Scroll: Jack Kerouac displaying one of his later scroll manuscripts, most likely The Dharma Bums

Kerouac's map of his first hitchhiking trip, July-October 1947 (click image to see the full map) Original New York Times review of On the Road (click image to see the full review)