Kerouac, Jack

The Portable Jack Kerouac

ISBN: 067084957X
New York, NY, USA: Viking Penguin, 1995. First Edition. Hardcover. Inscribed, signed & dated in month of publication by editor Ann Charters. "Jack Kerouac is one of the most widely read and profoundly influential writers in the American canon. This new one-volume omnibus, planned by the author himself before his death and now completed by his biographer, Ann Charters, will make clear the scope and accomplishment of his unique multi-volume "Legend of Duluoz." As Kerouac once wrote, "The whole thing forms one enormous comedy, seen through the eyes of poor Ti Jean (me), otherwise known as Jack Duluoz, the world of raging action and folly and also of gentle sweetness seen through the keyhole of his eye."...includes significant excerpts from the novels...selections from Kerouac's poetry and experimental novels; essays on literature, Buddhism, and the Beat movement; and a selection of letters." (from front & rear flaps) The definitive door-stopper anthology-reader extracted from the vast oeuvre of Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Founding Father of the Beat Generation. Edited & with preface & introduction by Ann Charters (b. 1936), the foremost Kerouac scholar who was his first biographer & bibliographer, & is our esteemed colleague at the European Beat Studies Network (ebsn.eu). Also with a chronology of Kerouac's life & his own "Introduction" (to his novel Lonesome Traveler); Identity Key, short bibliography & list of original published sources. Hardcover in unclipped first-issue dust jacket (with $27.95 price & "0395" printed at front flap), first edition, first printing as indicated by number sequence on copyright page. On the title page, below her printed name, Charters has hand-written, signed & dated in bold black ink: "To Robert & Dorothy- / my dear friends. / With love, / (signed) Ann Charters / 3/25/95 Ross Valley Books." The date written is within the month of first publication, per flap quotation above. An excellent, indeed indispensable, now-classic & collectible introduction to the "one long work" of the Great Jack Kerouac, curated by his Supreme Authority, in its very rarest contemporary form & greatly enriched by Charters' warm inscription, signature & date. Book in very fine condition with only a hint of wear & a few tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of front, back covers & spine; tiny bumps at upper corners of a few page leaves; otherwise substantially mint inside & out. Dust jacket very fine with only very slight rubbing, faint scratching to front, back covers, spine & flaps; a touch of wear & some tiny bumps, creases at/from edges & corners of same. Very Fine / Very Fine. [Item #6899]

Price: $125.00 save 15% $106.25