Jack Kerouac
Selected Letters, 1957-1969
by Jack Kerouac; Ann Charters
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Editions of Jack Kerouac
 |
ISBN |
Binding/Format Hardcover |
Publisher Penguin Group USA |
Date 1999 |
Price $4.49 |
 Poor |
Publisher Notes
Viking's 1995 publication of the first volume of Jack Kerouac's letters was seen as a major addition to Kerouac scholarship and helped contribute to a new appraisal of Kerouac's legacy and his position in the American literary landscape. This second and final volume of letters, which begins in 1957, the year of the publication of On the Road, and ends in October, 1969, two days before Kerouac's death, should do the same. As in the first volume, Charters has been guided in her choice of letters by her desire to create a "life-in-letters" in which Kerouac has the opportunity to tell the story of his life as eloquently as he did in his "true-story" novels. Rich and intense letters to friends and confidants -- among them William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Sterling Lord, and Malcolm Cowley -- illuminate Kerouac's development as a writer, as well as demonstrating how the publication of his books and the attendant publicity and hostile critical response to his work nearly destroyed him. The volume is edited with extensive headnotes and footnotes by Charters.
Media Reviews
"[I]illuminates how these writers perceived each other and their art....Charters's shrewd commentary...judiciously provides the reader with sufficient information to decipher the more esoteric passages...."
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