Kerouac: Selected Letters: Volume 1: 1940-1956 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780140234442)

It was in his letters that Jack Kerouac set down the raw material that he transmuted into his novels, exploring and refining the spontaneous prose style that became his trademark. The letters in this volume, written between 1940, when Kerouac was a freshman at college, and 1956, immediately before his breathless leap into celebrity with the publication of On the Road, offer invaluable insights into Kerouac's family life, his friendships with Neal and Carolyn Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and William S. Burroughs, his travels, love affairs, and literary apprenticeship. At once fascinating reading and a major addition to Kerouac scholarship, here is a rare portrait of the writer as a young adventurer of immense talent, energy, and ambition in the midst of writing and living an American legend.

Author: Jack Kerouac
ISBN-10: 0140234446
ISBN-13: 9780140234442
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 03/01/1996
Pages: 656
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 8.11h x 4.86w x 1.43d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 03/24/1996 pg. 28
Publishers Weekly 01/15/1996