Kerouac, Jack

Dr. Sax

ISBN: (SBN)345235576150
New York, NY: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1973. First Softcover Edition Thus. Softcover. "Describing the mystery and terror of an intensely felt adolescence, Doctor Sax is the story of Jack Duluoz, like Kerouac himself a French-Canadian, growing up among the shadowy doorways and brown tenements of Lowell, Massachusetts. Always lurking in the back of Jack's mind is the shadow of Doctor Sax, cape flowing, slouch hat half concealing a malevolent leer. He is one of the many ghosts, monsters, and demons that inhabit Jack's fantasy-ridden world. Memory and dream are intermixed in a mad universe which at last erupts in an apocalyptic vision that destroys the reincarnation of evil, and with it the boy's morbid world." (back cover) This is the now-classic memoir by Jack Kerouac, Founding Father of the Beat Generation. Based on his actual childhood experiences, impressions & fantasies, Kerouac employs his younger alter ego, Jack Duluoz, to conjure a time & place from the perspective of youthful but very sensitive & penetrating eyes & mind. Offered here is a copy of the first mass-market format softcover edition thus published by Ballantine Books in 1973, first printing as stated on copyright page. With front cover illustration-photograph by Hank Dunning unique to this edition, back cover copy varying very slightly from 1959 Grove Press first edition. An evocative, immortal Kerouac masterpiece; a key collectible in his canon in an interesting intermediate form. In fine condition with very mild rubbing to front, back covers & spine; mild wear & a few tiny bumps at edges & corners of same; small amount of creasing-tumbling with very little breakthrough at spine; one mild crease at blank black area near upper left corner of back cover; very light spotting & fading to yellow-dyed edges of text block; small area of what appears to be black glue near spine at lower edge of same. Interior very fine with only mild-to-moderate browning mostly at blank margins of page leaves (inevitable with pulp-quality paper); small creases at upper corners of a few page leaves. Fine. [Item #3455]

Price: $25.00