Kerouac, Jack

Desolation Angels

London, England: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1966. First UK Edition. Hardcover. "All of the leading figures of the Beat Generation appear in this novel, and what the reader witnesses is the way in which these people, obsessed by art, self-investigation and ideas, became aware of themselves and their own attitudes, and crystallized into a group expressing many of their contemporaries' feelings which had hitherto been hushed up or considered improper for literature. And the man who is writing might be called the crystallizing agent: the Big Daddy of Hip, the writer who achieved a rhythm close to jazz, a pace like the actual movement of the mind, and a voice which has penetrated to a larger number of young people than has been reached by anyone else of his generation." (from front & back flaps) The thinly fictionalized memoir (as are virtually all his works) by Jack Kerouac, Founding Father of the Beat Generation. In this novel, A personal favorite of this writer, Kerouac describes the existential anxiety & loneliness ("desolation") he experiences, differently but equally, first in the profound isolation of a remote forest-fire lookout, then amidst his cohorts in San Francisco & Mexico at the apex of the Beat Generation- San Francisco Renaissance phenomenon when its notoriety was beginning to explode. Again as with all his major works, the actual Beats including himself are barely disguised under fictional names- William S. Burroughs ("Bull Hubbard"), Carolyn & Neal Cassady ("Evelyn & Cody Pomeray"), Allen Ginsberg ("Irwin Garden"), narrator-protagonist Kerouac himself (his alter ego "Jack Duluoz"), Gary Snyder ("Jarry Wagner") & many more, with the same identities that he deployed in Big Sur, etc. With a thoughtful, enthusiastic introduction by the late, great Beat-related journalist & critic Seymour Krim. This is the first UK edition, published the year following the first American edition, hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, one of 4000 copies issued May 23, 1966 (Charters, A20(c), pg. 44). The contents, including pagination, here are identical to the American edition; the differences are in covers, spine & especially the dust jacket, which has a pop-art illustration on silver background, & flap copy (see above) similar to the American version with paraphrasing & inspiration from Krim's introduction but tuned to a swinging-sixties British sensibility. A profound work of literary art; an absolutely essential pillar in the collectible Kerouac canon in its penultimately rarest form. Book in fine condition with very slight wear to edges & corners of front, back covers & spine; mild-to-moderate rubbing, browning & spotting to edges of text block. Interior fine with mild browning, occasional spotting to blank paste-downs & endpapers; small oblong sticker of South African bookseller at lower right margin/ edge of front paste-down; previous owner's name crossed out in blue ink at upper left margin of front endpaper; small encircled number eleven, also in blue ink, at upper right margin of same; light browning mostly to blank margins of page leaves. Dust jacket fine with light rubbing, scratching to front, back covers, spine & flaps; mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same with very slight loss of surface paper at spine-edges & corners, cover corners. Fine / Fine. [Item #5071]

Price: $250.00