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Selected Letters, 1940-1956
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Selected Letters, 1940-1956 Softcover - 1996

by Kerouac, Jack

  • Used
  • Paperback
  • first

The life and craft of Jack Kerouac are traced through some of his most personal and mesmerizing letters. Written between 1940, when he was a freshman in college, and 1956, immediately before his leap into celebrity with the publication of On the Road, these letters offer valuable insights into Kerouac's family life, friendships with Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, and others.

Description

New York: Penguin Books. Nearly fine copy. 1996. 1st. softcover. 8vo, 629 pp., Edited & with an introduction & commentary by Ann Charters. .
Used - Nearly fine copy
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Details

  • Title Selected Letters, 1940-1956
  • Author Kerouac, Jack
  • Binding softcover
  • Edition 1st
  • Condition Used - Nearly fine copy
  • Pages 656
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books, New York
  • Date 1996
  • Bookseller's Inventory # BOOKS074350I
  • ISBN 9780140234442 / 0140234446
  • Weight 1.14 lbs (0.52 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.11 x 4.86 x 1.43 in (20.60 x 12.34 x 3.63 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress subjects Beat generation, Authors, American - 20th century -
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 94012911
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

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Summary

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.

From the publisher

Jack Kerouac(1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody.
Ann Charters is the editor of The Portable Sixties Reader, The Portable Jack Kerouac, two volumes of Jack Kerouac's Selected Letters, and Beat Down to Your Soul. She teaches at the University of Connecticut.

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Media reviews

"The most exhilirating book of the year."
—Chicago Tribune

"As we just now begin to map full the fallout of [the Beat Generation's] creative explosion, these letters offer an invaluable blueprint to the intricate, high-yield ballistics that went into creating it."
—San Francisco Examiner

"The greatest addition to the Kerouac canon in recent years"
—Steven Moore, Review of contemporary Fiction

"To have [his letters] gathered in one place . . . is to be overwhelmed by his passion for the printed word, by his hunger for experience and by his ability to describe both in language that sings. . . . The most exhilirating book of the year."
—Thomas McGonigle, Chicago Tribune

Citations

  • New York Times, 03/24/1996, Page 28
  • Publishers Weekly, 01/15/1996, Page 0

About the author

Jack Kerouac(1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody.
Ann Charters is the editor of The Portable Sixties Reader, The Portable Jack Kerouac, two volumes of Jack Kerouac's Selected Letters, and Beat Down to Your Soul. She teaches at the University of Connecticut.

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