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Pastimes : Deadheads -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JakeStraw who wrote (25675)	3/23/2001 12:22:55 AM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 49844

Kerouac's 'On the Road' Scroll to Be Auctioned Thursday March 22 4:08 PM ET dailynews.yahoo.com By Patrick Rizzo NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fifty years ago American author Jack Kerouac sat at a typewriter and pounded out in 20 days, on one long continuous scroll, ``On the Road,'' a book that became the Beat Generation's anthem and established Kerouac as an icon for generations of readers. Auction house Christie's on Thursday said that on May 22 it would be auctioning the 120 foot long scroll with an estimated value of $1 million to $1.5 million. Along with Allen Ginsberg's epic poem ``Howl'' and William Burrough's novel ``Naked Lunch,'' Kerouac's picaresque tale of post-War America inspired the Beat Generation, a small clique of writers based mainly in New York and San Francisco in the early 1950s. Kerouac wrote an initial version of ``On the Road'' in 1948, after he and friend Neal Cassady took a series of road trips across the United States. He began the manuscript in earnest on April 2, 1951, and finished it on April 22, writing in stream of consciousness, single-spaced on 12 foot long sheets of paper, pasted together into a continuous roll that he fed into the typewriter. The loosely autobiographical novel relates the adventures of a group of penniless young people traveling across America after World War II and experimenting with jazz, drugs and sex. It is narrated by Kerouac alter-ego Sal Paradise and features some of Kerouac's Beat friends, such as Ginsberg, alias Carlo Marx, and Cassady, alias Dean Moriarty. It took Kerouac until Sept. 5, 1957, to get the novel published. Its experimental, free form style did not generate much enthusiasm initially from publishers. Neither did the fact that it was on one sheet. Kerouac was forced to retype the novel and submit it in a more conventional page format. Since it was first published by Viking Press it has sold over 3 million copies, been translated into 25 languages and has been hailed as one of the great novels of 20th century America. The New York Times, in a 1957 review by Gilbert Millstein, said, ``There are sections of 'On The Road' in which the writing is of a beauty almost breathtaking.'' ``This was his breakthrough work of fiction,'' said Chris Coover, Christie's senior specialist in manuscripts. In London last June, Christie's sold long-lost proofs of French author Marcel Proust's ``Du cote de chez Swann'' for $942,525, a record for a work of French literature. In December, it sold an episode from Irish author James Joyce's masterpiece ``Ulysses'' for $1,546,000, a world auction record for a Joyce manuscript. In preparation for showing the Kerouac manuscript, Christie's is having it undergo some preservation to ensure it is stable enough to travel. ``Since it's a 50-year-old scroll of paper, it's a little bit on the fragile side,'' said Coover. ``We just want to be sure it is in stable condition...and ensure its safety.'' The scroll will go on public display at Christie's in midtown Manhattan from May 16 to 21. The auction house will exhibit the manuscript in Chicago and San Francisco in early May, Coover said.