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  • Published: 5 August 2008
  • ISBN: 9780141189215
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $29.99

On the Road




The legendary 1951 scroll draft of On the Road, published word for word as Kerouac originally composed it

On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance.

  • Published: 5 August 2008
  • ISBN: 9780141189215
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922. In 1947, enthused by bebop, the rebel attitude of his friend Neal Cassidy, and the throng of hobos, drug addicts and hustlers he encountered in New York, he decided to discover America and hitchhhike across the country. His writing was openly autobiographical and he developed a style he referred to as 'spontaneous prose' which he used to record the experiences of the Beat Generation. Among his many novels are On the Road, Maggie Cassidy, The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. He died in 1969.

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