Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters, 1940-1956 by Kerouac, Jack and Edited by Ann Charters

Viking 1995. 8vo. Hardcover no d/w. 629pp. Good. In his prolific correspondence Jack Kerouac set down the raw material of the life that he would later transmute into his multi-volume "Legend of Duluoz". He also refined the seemingly freewheeling and spontaneous prose style that became his trademark. This volume contains many letters written between 1940, when Kerouac was a college freshman and 1956, immediately before his leap to celebrity status. They offer invaluable insights into Kerouac's family life, friendships, travels, love affairs and literary apprenticeship, and provide accounts of the events that inspired "On the Road", "Visions of Cody" and "The Dharma Burns". .