On the Road
New York: The Viking Press, 1957
In-8 format, 310 pp., original black cloth, spine and front board lettered in white, top edge in red, with near fine original dust jacket. Dedication in blue ink on the half-title, with an added drawing of a piano and musical notes. Good copy (a few creases and slight wear to the corners of the dust jacket). Dimensions: 143 x 221 mm.
First edition, presentation copy to Bud Powell « To Bud (Powell) / From his buddy / Jack Kerouac »
This is Bud Powell (1924-1966) the American Jazz pianist.
Along with Charlie Parker, Monk, and Dizzy Gillespie, Powell was a leading figure in the development of modern jazz, or bebop. His virtuosity led many to call him the Charlie Parker of the piano. In a 1953 letter to Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, Kerouac includes Monk in the list of “musical geniuses” alongside “Bud Powell, Bird, Billy Holiday, Lester Young, [and] Jerry Mulligan” (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters (2010), 197). This copy is dedicated to one of those “geniuses”. The Beat Movement’s interest in jazz is, of course, already well-trodden ground. And Kerouac’s jazz poetics has been explored by a number of scholars.
When On the Road was published, Kerouac was so overwhelmed by the publicity that he went into self-imposed exile with his mother. Consequently, inscribed copies of any printing of this opus, his most important book, are rare.
Jack Kerouac’s classic Roman A Clef, published in 1957, was the defining work of the Beat Generation. It follows the travels of Sal Paradise, a stand in for Kerouac himself, and is based on a series of journeys Kerouac took from 1947 to 1950. The work was typed up on a continuous “scroll” of sheets that Kerouac had taped together. On The Road appears on both Modern Library’s list of the 100 best novels of the century and on Time Magazine list of the 100 best English language novels from 1923-2005. “[I]ts publi
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