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On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Paperback - 2008

by Jack Kerouac; Introduction by Howard Cunnell; Introduction by Penny Vlagopoulos

The legendary 1951 scroll draft of "On the Road" is now published as Kerouac originally composed it: rougher, wilder, and more provocative than the official work that was released, heavily edited, in 1957.


About this book

Perhaps the most famous and influential of the Beat novels, Jack Kerouac's On the Road represents much of what made the Beat and Counterculture movements so unique and important. The plot concerning the road trips and adventures experienced by Kerouac and his friends is well-known, as are the rumors and tall tales of the books' production.

Kerouac often claimed that the wrote On the Road in a mere three weeks on a single 120-foot scroll of paper. Although that scroll does indeed exist and is featured in museums, Kerouac kept detailed journals of his travels that would later become passages and chapters in the finished product. The book was first published by Viking in 1957. 


Viking Press would go on to publish an edited version of On the Road in 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first printing. They substituted the fictional names for the real Beat protagonists, and they even included some of the more sexually explicit passages that were edited out of the 1957 edition.


Due to the cultural significance of the book, true first editions/first printings of On the Road are quite valuable. But be warned: it is easy to mistake reprints or book club editions for the real thing, so always check with an expert before making a significant purchase.

Summary

The legendary 1951 scroll draft of On the Road, published as Kerouac originally composed it

IN THREE WEEKS in April of 1951, Jack Kerouac wrote his first full draft of On the Road—typed as a single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper, which he later taped together to form a 120-foot scroll. A major literary event when it was published in Viking hardcover in 2007, this is the uncut version of an American classic—rougher, wilder, and more provocative than the official work that appeared, heavily edited, in 1957. This version, capturing a moment in creative history, represents the first full expression of Kerouac’s revolutionary aesthetic.


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From the publisher

The legendary 1951 scroll draft of On the Road, published as Kerouac originally composed it IN THREE WEEKS in April of 1951, Jack Kerouac wrote his first full draft of On the Road--typed as a single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper, which he later taped together to form a 120-foot scroll. A major literary event when it was published in Viking hardcover in 2007, this is the uncut version of an American classic--rougher, wilder, and more provocative than the official work that appeared, heavily edited, in 1957. This version, capturing a moment in creative history, represents the first full expression of Kerouac's revolutionary aesthetic. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

First Edition Identification

On The Road was first published by Viking in 1957. True first printings of the book include the $3.95 pricing information on the top right hand corner of the front inside dust jacket flap. Later printings and subsequent book club editions do not feature the price in that location. Additionally, a photo of Kerouac is featured on the back inside cover flap along with a brief description of the author.

Details

  • Title On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
  • Author Jack Kerouac; Introduction by Howard Cunnell; Introduction by Penny Vlagopoulos
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 416
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Group, New York
  • Date 2008-08-26
  • Features Bibliography
  • ISBN 9780143105466 / 0143105469
  • Weight 1 lbs (0.45 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.4 x 5.65 x 1 in (21.34 x 14.35 x 2.54 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Reading level 940
  • Themes
    • Topical: Coming of Age
  • Library of Congress subjects Autobiographical fiction, Beat generation
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

' A dazzling piece of writing for all of its rough edges, strippedof affectations that in the novel can sometimes verge onbathos . . . It seems much more immediate and contemporary.'
Luc Sante, New York Times Book Review

Citations

  • New York Times Book Review, 10/12/2008, Page 32

About the author

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a Franco-American family. He attended local Catholic and public schools and won a scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he first met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. His first novel, The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassady, that epitomized to the world what became known as the "Beat generation" and made Kerouac one of the most best-known writers of his time. Publication of many other books followed, among them The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and Big Sur. Kerouac considered all of his autobiographical fiction to be part of "one vast book," The Duluoz Legend. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven.
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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

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On the Road: the Original Scroll : (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Kerouac, Jack; Cunnell, Howard [Introduction]; Vlagopoulos, Penny [Introduction]; Mouratidis, George [Introduction]; Kupetz, Joshua [Introduction];

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