Jack Kerouac was an American novelist and poet known as a pioneer of the Beat Generation. His work is heavily influenced by jazz as seen in his style of spontaneous prose. His most notable works include The Town and the City, On the Road, Doctor Sax, The Dharma Burns, Mexico City Blues, The Subterraneans, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody, The Sea is My Brother, and Big Sur.
[Rocky Mount, North Carolina]: [January 1956]. 'I can outwrite any sonofabitch in the world today'. A bold steamroller of an unsigned letter fragment from Kerouac to poet Philip Whalen soon after he has completed writing the novel Visions of Gerard (which would not be published until 1963). “‘screams of passion..... Read More about Typed Letter to Philip Whalen
Price: $5,750
n.d [1940s]. Kerouac forwards fifty dollars to his Horace Mann classmate Henri Cru and asks for help in finding an apartment in Queens. "p.s. My mother thanks you for the Ceylon tea and want you to come visit us here, sooner the better'. Read More about Typed Letter Signed ("Jack") to Henri Cru
Price: $5,000
April 19, 1947. 'My subject as a writer is of course America'. An unmailed letter to Kerouac's former Columbia roommate Hal Chase, written shortly before Kerouac's departure for Denver and the start of his life on the road. Chase hailed from Denver, and he introduced fellow Denver native Neal Cassady..... Read More about Typed Letter to "Prince Hal," with autograph note: "unmailed letter to Hal Chase...
Price: $10,000
[n.p.]: Friday eve, November 1942. "I am wasting my money and my health here at Columbia...it's been one huge debauchery ... I want to go back to the sea" An outstanding early Kerouac letter to his closest friend from his formative years in Lowell, Mass, Sebastian Sampas, complaining about life..... Read More about Typed letter signed ("Jean") in pencil, to Sebastian Sampas
Price: $12,500
Ozone Park, Long Island, New York: March 21, 1944, "4 A.M." "You were the only true teacher I ever had, my friend." ... Unpublished Kerouac letter. A poignant, emotionally vulnerable letter written by a 22-year-old Kerouac to Ian Macdonald, one of his close friends from his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts..... Read More about Typed letter signed ("Jack") in pencil, to Ian Macdonald
Price: $15,000
New York: The Viking Press, 1957. First edition. The Beat Classic. Read More about On the Road
Price: $800
1418-1/2 Clouser St, Orlando, Fla: postmarked January 29, 1958. “I’ve had visions and reassurances and all kinds of wild gnostic certainties handed to me”. Kerouac writes in response to a letter from Irving Rosenthal of the Chicago Review (a carbon of the letter is included here), who had requested a...... Read More about Typed Letter, signed (“Jack Kerouac”), to Irving Rosenthal of the Chicago Review
Price: $9,750