On the Road. by KEROUAC, Jack - 1957

New York: The Viking Press,, 1957. Octavo. Original black boards, titles to spine and front board in white. With the dust jacket. Housed in a red half morocco box. Spine a little rolled but an excellent copy in the slightly creased and lightly frayed dust jacket. First edition, first printing, presentation copy to Pieter W. Fosburgh and his wife Liza, inscribed by Kerouac in bold red crayon, "To Peter [sic] and Liza Fosburgh, Writing in red crayon in memory of the Red House, Jack Kérouac [sic] (Idiot) (St. Jack of the Germs)" [the last five words in pencil]. This is a fascinating and thoroughly characterful presentation. The Fosburghs lived in a red house in a rural hamlet, Cherry Plain, upstate New York, where they were neighbours of the family of Kerouac's notorious friend Lucien Carr. Pieter Whitney Fosburgh (1915-1978), author of the proto-conservationist book, The Natural Thing: The Land and its Citizens (New York: Macmillan, 1959), was editor of New York State's Department of Conservation magazine. As his middle name indicates, he was descended through his mother from the socially prominent Whitney family of Massachusetts. His wife Liza wrote children's books. A signed first printing of Fosburgh's The Natural Thing is included.