On the Road

Jack Kerouac

Penguin Classics, 2011 - Autobiographical fiction - 280 pages

On the Road swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat. Now recognized as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Walt Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion. Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was an American novelist, poet, artist and part of the Beat Generation. Most of his life was spent in the vast landscapes of America or living with his mother, with whom he spent most of his life. Kerouac's best known works are On the Road and The Dharma Bums. Ann Charters, professor of English at the University of Connecticut, has been interested in Beat writers since 1956.

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About the author

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922. In 1947, enthused by bebop, the rebel attitude of his friend Neal Cassidy, and the throng of hobos, drug addicts and hustlers he encountered in New York, he decided to discover America and hitchhhike across the country. His writing was openly autobiographical and he developed a style he referred to as 'spontaneous prose' which he used to record the experiences of the Beat Generation. Among his many novels are On the Road, Maggie Cassidy, The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bumsand Big Sur. He died in 1969.

Bibliographic information

• Title: On the Road; Penguin classics
• Author: Jack Kerouac
• Edition: reprint, revised
• Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2011
• ISBN: 0141198206, 9780141198200
• Length: 280 pages