Skip to content

The Portable Beat Reader (Penguin Classics)
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

The Portable Beat Reader (Penguin Classics) Paperback - 2003

by Various

  • New

Through poetry, fiction, essays, song lyrics, letters, and memoir this authoritative single-volume collection of Beat literature captures the triumphant energy of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and many others.

Description

Penguin USA. New. Special order direct from the distributor
New
NZ$38.41
NZ$25.03 Shipping to USA
Standard delivery: 6 to 12 days
More Shipping Options
Ships from Russell Books Ltd (British Columbia, Canada)
The BIBLIO Guarantee | Ask Seller a Question

Details

  • Title The Portable Beat Reader (Penguin Classics)
  • Author Various
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Condition New
  • Pages 688
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin USA, New York
  • Date July 29, 2003
  • Features Bibliography, Index
  • Bookseller's Inventory # ING9780142437537
  • ISBN 9780142437537 / 0142437530
  • Weight 1.08 lbs (0.49 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.76 x 6.36 x 1.2 in (19.71 x 16.15 x 3.05 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress subjects American literature - 20th century, Beat generation
  • Dewey Decimal Code 810.800

About Russell Books Ltd British Columbia, Canada

Biblio member since 2006
Seller rating: This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.

Family owned and operated since 1961. Located in Downtown Victoria selling new, used, and remainder titles in all categories. We also have an extensive selection of Journals, cards and calendars.

Terms of Sale: For further information - (250) 361-4447 (GST applied to all Canadian orders). Shipping prices are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. Canadian and U.S. orders sent with Automated Package Tracking and delivery confirmation, where available. If your book order is heavy or over-sized, we may contact you regarding any extra shipping costs.

Browse books from Russell Books Ltd

Summary

Beginning in the late 1940's, American literature discovered a four-letter word, and the word was "beat." Beat as in poverty and beatitude, ecstasy and exile. Beat was Jack Kerouac touring the American road in prose as fast and reckless as a V-8 Chevy. It was the junk-sick surrealism of William Burroughs; the wild, Whitmanesque poetry of Allen Ginsberg; and the lumberjack Zen of Gary Snyder.

The Portable Beat Reader collects the most significant writing of these and fellow members (and spiritual descendants) of the Beat Generation, including Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Diane di Prima, Bob Dylan, Leroi Jones, and Michael McClure. In poetry, fiction, essays, song lyrics, letters, and memoirs, it captures the triumphant rudeness, energy, and exhilaration of a movement that swept through American letters with hurricane force.

From the publisher

Beginning in the late 1940's, American literature discovered a four-letter word, and the word was "beat." Beat as in poverty and beatitude, ecstasy and exile. Beat was Jack Kerouac touring the American road in prose as fast and reckless as a V-8 Chevy. It was the junk-sick surrealism of William Burroughs; the wild, Whitmanesque poetry of Allen Ginsberg; and the lumberjack Zen of Gary Snyder.

The Portable Beat Reader collects the most significant writing of these and fellow members (and spiritual descendants) of the Beat Generation, including Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Diane di Prima, Bob Dylan, Leroi Jones, and Michael McClure. In poetry, fiction, essays, song lyrics, letters, and memoirs, it captures the triumphant rudeness, energy, and exhilaration of a movement that swept through American letters with hurricane force.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Media reviews

"A deft and definitive collection. It catches the flavor of playful, serious defiance of the whole generation." — Gary Snyder

About the author

Ann Charters, a Jack Kerouac and Beat Generation scholar, is professor of American Literature emerita at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. in 1966, she worked with Kerouac to compile his bibliography, and was the only biographer who interviewed him about the circumstances in which he wrote his books. She is the author of his first biography, Kerouac, in 1973. She edited his posthumous poetry collection, Scattered Poems. She is also the editor of numerous books on Beat and other literature, including The Portable Beat Reader, The Portable Sixties Reader, Beat Down to Your Soul, The Portable Jack Kerouac Reader, and two volumes of Kerouac's Selected Letters.

Hang on… we’re fetching the requested page.