Book description
On the Road swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America,
jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and
his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of
Beat. Now recognized as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer
that of Walt Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards
the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and
autobiographical passion.
Contains an introduction by Ann Charters, as well as suggestions for
further reading of acclaimed criticisms and references.
Jack Kerouac (1922 1969) was an American novelist, poet,
artist and part of the Beat Generation. Most of his life was spent in
the vast landscapes of America or living with his mother, with whom he
spent most of his life. Kerouac's best known works are On the Road
and The Dharma Bums.
Ann Charters, professor of English at the University of Connecticut,
has been interested in Beat writers since 1956, when as an
undergraduate English major she attended the repeat performance of the
Six Gallery poetry reading in Berkeley where Allen Ginsberg gave his
sencond public reading of Howl. After his death she wrote the
first Kerouac biography and edited his posthumous collection,
Scattered Poems. She was the general editor of the two-volume
encyclopaedia The Beats: Literary Bohemians In Postwar America
and has published a collection of her photographic portraits of
well-known writers in the book Beats & Company.
