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Identifier/Call Number
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Berg Coll MSS Kerouac archive
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Description
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en
The Jack Kerouac Archive spans the years 1920 to 1977, with the bulk dated 1935 to 1969. The collection chiefly consists of holograph and typescript drafts of Kerouac's novels, stories, poetry, plays and screenplays, journals, diaries, notebooks, autobiographical and spiritual prose, fantasy horseracing, and fantasy baseball game. Other materials include Jack Kerouac's artwork, incoming and outgoing correspondence, photographs, personal and financial papers (including bank statements and canceled checks), publishing contracts, newspaper cuttings, maps, and realia.
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Copyright Statement and Conditions governing use
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The copyright interests in the Jack Kerouac Archive are retained by the estate of Jack Kerouac. For further information, please contact Dr. Isaac Gewirtz, Curator of the Berg Collection of English and American Literature, who will provide you with contact information for the estate. See also the section on copyright in the Regulations and Procedures of the Office of Special Collections, New York Public Library.
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Biography, Administrative History and Provenance
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en
Jack Kerouac (Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac) was born in Lowell, Massachusetts on March 12, 1922. His father, Leo Alcide Kerouac was a job printer. His mother, Gabrielle Ange Kerouac (nee Levesque) was a shoe-factory worker. Both parents were French-Canadian, and Jack Kerouac grew up in a predominantly Roman Catholic, French-Canadian community in Lowell. He was recognized as an outstanding athlete, and won a football scholarship to Columbia University. Prior to attending Columbia he spent a preparatory year at Horace Mann School for Boys, where he wrote for school publications. He became determined to be a major American writer during his high school years; the early materials in his Archive reflect this youthful determination.\n
Kerouac entered Columbia in 1940 but after breaking his leg during his first football season his academic interest declined, and he spent his time on independent reading, including the work of Thomas Wolfe, whose work exerted an influence on Kerouac's writing for many years afterwards. He left Columbia during the fall of his sophomore year in 1941, and spent the following years working at a variety of odd jobs. After nearly two years in the merchant marine he enlisted in the United States Navy in 1943 but was released from duty after six months for psychological reasons, honorably discharged as an "indifferent character." He spent the remainder of World War II in the merchant marine.\n
During this period, when in New York, he associated with a bohemian group of students around the Columbia campus. This group included Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Both appear, thinly-disguised, in several of Kerouac's novels, and he would later give each writer the title for their best-known works -- "Howl" and "Naked Lunch."\n
After marrying Edith Parker in 1944 he embarked upon a series of cross-country journeys, moving continuously between New York, Denver, San Francisco, Mexico City, and back to New York. These travels became the basis of his novel "On The Road." Kerouac traveled extensively with Neal Cassady, an inspiring, charismatic drifter from Denver with whom he shared a hunger for philosophy, theology, literature, sex, drugs, sensation and salvation. His marriage to Edith Parker was annulled in 1945.\n
His father's death, in 1946, spurred him to begin writing the novel published in 1950 as "The Town and the City," a minor critical but not financial success. With the advance for "The Town and the City" Kerouac was able to move himself, and his mother, to Colorado, where he began to formulate the narrative that would eventually become "On The Road."\n
After the advance money ran out he returned to New York and, between 1948 and 1949, enrolled at the New School for Social Research, where he attended Alfred Kazin's classes on the visionary poet William Blake. Kerouac married Joan Haverty in November 1950. The following year, inspired by reading a 23,000 word letter from Neal Cassady, he spent three-weeks typing the 175,000 word first draft of "On The Road" on a constructed paper scroll. The completion of this draft coincided with the demise of his second marriage.\n
"On The Road" was published in 1957; its publication was hailed by Gilbert Millstein, reviewing it for The New York Times, as "a historic occasion." Millstein was unequivocal in his praise of the novel, regarding it as "the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat' and whose principal avatar he is."\n
Developing and refining his style, which he called "Spontaneous Prose," Kerouac produced eight more books over the next few years, as publishers capitalized on the attention generated by the publication of "On The Road." He wrote "The Subterraneans" in three Benzedrine-fuelled days of manic writing in 1957.\n
Kerouac was the first of the beat writers to look to Buddhism and the East for inspiration, calling himself "a religious wanderer" or "dharma bum." He became, however, increasingly alienated from his fans in the 1960s, bewildered by the radical politics of the new counter-cultural currents that he had played a large part in setting in motion. He continued to drink heavily, shunned literary society, and withdrew to St. Petersburg, Florida, or his home-town of Lowell, where he lived with his ailing mother and his third wife, Stella, whom he married in 1966.\n
He died on October 21, 1969, as a result of complications brought on by alcoholism.\n
Chronology\n
March 12, 1922 Born in Lowell, Massachusetts.\n
1934 Leo Kerouac takes his son to Rockingham Park to see his first horse race. Jack Kerouac creates his horse racing fantasy and its chronicle, "The Turf."\n
1939 June 28: Kerouac graduates Lowell High School. September 22: Kerouac begins a post-graduate year at Horace Mann Prep school in New York. November 22: Lowell Sun newspaper prints an article about Kerouac's football achievements at Horace Mann. Kerouac's short story "The Brothers" is published in the Horace Mann Quarterly.\n
1940 September: Kerouac starts attending Columbia University on a football scholarship. October 12: Kerouac breaks his leg during a football game.\n
1941 October: Kerouac leaves Columbia University.\n
1942 July 21: Kerouac joins Merchant Marines and sails to Greenland aboard the S.S. Dorchester. October 5: Kerouac is discharged from the Merchant Marines in New York. Returns to Columbia University for a few weeks. Kerouac creates the "Duluoz" pseudonym.\n
1944 Kerouac meets William S. Burroughs. Kerouac's childhood friend Sebastian "Sammy" Sampas is killed in action. Kerouac meets Allen Ginsberg. Marries Edie Parker.\n
1945 Kerouac co-writes with Burroughs "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks."\n
1946 Death of Leo Kerouac, Jack Kerouac's father. Kerouac begins "The Town and the City." Begins using Benzedrine regularly. December: Meets Neil Cassady. Kerouac's marriage to Edie Parker is annulled.\n
1948 Begins "The Town and the City". Meets John Clellon Holmes.\n
1949 "The Town and the City" accepted for publication. Kerouac uses the term "beat generation" for the first time.\n
1950 "The Town and the City" published. Marries Joan Haverty.\n
1951 Writes "On The Road" on a paper scroll. Separates from Joan Haverty. Ace books give Kerouac $250 advance for "On the Road."\n
1952 Writes "Doctor Sax." Works as a railroad brakeman in California.\n
1953 Writes "Maggie Cassidy." Works for the Southern Pacific Railroad in San Jose. Writes "The Subterraneans."\n
1954 Begins writing "Some of the Dharma." Begins writing "San Francisco Blues" poems; begins "Book of Dreams." Sterling Lord becomes Kerouac's literary agent.\n
1955 Begins "Tristessa." Writes "Mexico City Blues." Kerouac meets Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure. October: With Gary Snyder and John Montgomery, Kerouac climbs the 12,000 foot high Matterhorn mountain in the Sierra Nevada chain. December 22: Kerouac returns to Rocky Mount, North Carolina and begins writing "Visions of Gerard."\n
1956 Completes "Visions of Gerard." July-September: Alone on Desolation Peak in the Cascade Mountains working as a firewatcher. September: After more than 60 days of solitude on Desolation Peak, Kerouac comes down from the mountain and travels to Seattle. Completes "Tristessa" and begins "Desolation Angels." Mid-December: Viking Press accepts "On The Road" for publication.\n
1957 Types up "The Subterraneans." Visits William S. Burroughs in Tangier. September 5: "On The Road" published. Writes "The Dharma Bums." Writes the play "Beat Generation."\n
1958 Begins "Memory Babe." "The Subterraneans" and "The Dharma Bums" published.\n
1959 Begins writing column for Escapade magazine. "Doctor Sax: Faust Part Three," "Mexico City Blues," and "Maggie Cassidy: A Love Story" published. Excerpts from "Visions of Cody" published in a limited edition.\n
1960 "Tristessa," "Lonesome Traveler" and "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity" published.\n
1961 Writes "Big Sur." "Book of Dreams" published.\n
1962 "Big Sur" published. Begins writing "Vanity of Duluoz."\n
1963 "Visions of Gerard" published.\n
1965 "Desolation Angels" published. Writes "Satori in Paris."\n
1966 "Satori in Paris" published. Kerouac marries Stella Sampas.\n
1967 Completes "Vanity of Duluoz."\n
1968 "Vanity of Duluoz: An Adventurous Education" published.\n
1969 Begins work on "Pic." October 21: Jack Kerouac dies from internal bleeding at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. October 24: Kerouac's funeral is held at St. Jean Baptiste Roman Catholic Church in Lowell. He is buried at the Edson Cemetery in Lowell.\n
Provenance: Previously owned by John Sampas, executor of the Kerouac estate.\n
Source of acquisition:The Jack Kerouac Archive was purchased by the Library on July 28, 2001, from the estate of Jack Kerouac. The Archive was delivered to the Berg Collection shortly thereafter. Because the archive was unprocessed and because the Library was contractually obligated to prevent copying, in its broadest definition, of the archive's contents, until 2006, or until the appearance of the estate-authorized biography of Kerouac -- whichever came first -- access to the archive was forbidden, except to those given permission by the estate for the purpose of fulfilling prior publication obligations, in concert with the estate. However, the Library was contractually permitted to display material from the archive in exhibitions and presentations, and material was so displayed by the Berg Curator in this manner, most significantly in the exhibition "Victorians, Moderns, and Beats: New in the Berg, 1994-2001" (displayed April 26-July 27, 2002); also, "Passion's Discipline: The History of the Sonnet in the British Isles and America" (displayed May 2-August 2, 2003) contained the draft of a Kerouac sonnet.\n
Prior to the archive's purchase, beginning in the late 1980s, the Berg regularly purchased or, occasionally, received as gifts, a variety of Kerouac papers, including manuscripts, typescripts, notebooks, journals, diaries, correspondence (both by and to Kerouac), and photographs. Many of these items were cataloged; their descriptions, present in the card catalog, may now also be accessed on the Berg website, or through CATNYP, under the title "Jack Kerouac Collection of Papers, 1942-1969." (The Kerouac Archive proper, for which this finding aid was produced, is titled "Jack Kerouac Papers.") Many more items that were purchased or received as gifts remained uncataloged and were placed in the Berg's backlog, which was accessed via an in-house database, the contents of which were made available to researchers. Researchers were made aware of the existence of Kerouac material in the backlog through interactions with Berg staff in the reading room, through off-site reference exchanges, and through the "Recently Acquired and Cataloged" link on the Berg's website.\n
The backlog Kerouac papers included, most notably: 4 autograph notebooks for Maggie Cassidy; 11 autograph notebooks for Some of the Dharma; 3 autograph spiral notebooks for Satori in Paris; 15 autograph notebooks of literary sketches; autograph notebook for Tics; autograph notebook for Daydreams; 6 autograph notebooks for Mexico City Blues; 10 autograph notebooks for Passing Through; 11 notebooks for Book of Dreams; typescript for Book of Dreams; manuscripts/typescripts of about a dozen poems; over 100 autograph letters (and about 20 typed letters) signed by Kerouac. Researchers should also be advised that the Berg has comprehensive collection of Kerouac imprints, many of which feature significant inscriptions by the author, as well as journals, anthologies, broadsides, and ephemera containing his writings.\n
In addition, the Berg contains other significant Beat holdings, most notably the William S. Burroughs Archive, but also, primarily in its backlog at present, papers of important Beat writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Philip Whalen, as well as an extensive collection of Beat publications by these authors, including broadsides, pamphlets, journals, and ephemera.\n
The processing of the Jack Kerouac Archive was made possible, in part, through the generous assistance of the Gladys Kreible Delmas Foundation.\n
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Extent
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90 Manuscript Boxes (22.5 linear feet); 13 oversize folders
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Arrangement
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en
The Jack Kerouac archive spans the years 1920 to 1977, with the bulk dated 1935 to 1969. The collection chiefly consists of holograph and typescript drafts of Kerouac's novels, stories, poetry, plays and screenplays, journals, diaries, notebooks, autobiographical and spiritual prose, fantasy horseracing, and fantasy baseball game. Other materials include Jack Kerouac's artwork, incoming and outgoing correspondence, photographs, personal and financial papers (including bank statements and canceled checks), publishing contracts, newspaper cuttings, maps, and realia.\n
The Jack Kerouac Papers are arranged in sixteen series:\n
Series 1: Jack Kerouac's arrangement of his archive - Drafts of novels, The Town and the City,On The Road,notebooks, and letters 1938-1965, and undated, (bulk 1938-1965) - Jack Kerouac devised an alphanumeric organizational system for his literary papers. Papers were arranged by Jack Kerouac and placed in folders labeled A1 through D9. The original order of these papers has been maintained in Series I, recording Kerouac's folder order in the entry for each item. Following Series I the Archive is divided into a further fifteen series, including literary manuscripts, journals, diaries, incoming correspondence, personal papers, artwork, photographs, contracts, financial papers, maps, and realia.\n
Literary and personal papers 1930-1965, n.d. (bulk 1938-1952). - Consists of Kerouac's working drafts for his novels, notebooks, journals, notes, sketches, poetry, and some incoming correspondence.\n
Series 2: Writings by Jack Kerouac (not arranged by Kerouac in an alphanumeric system) - This series, and its subseries, include drafts of novels, stories, poetry, plays, screenplays, notebooks, materials collected in an envelope labeled "1944 'Self-Ultimacy' Period," materials collected in a folder labeled "1949," essays, notes, and literary fragments, autobiographical prose, spiritual texts, and scrolls. Includes The Town and the City, andOn The Road,and notebooks. (bulk 1940-1969).\n
Series 3: Journals\n
Series 4: Diaries\n
Series 5: Sports\n
Personal (College Athletics and Football), & Horseracing (Real and Fantasy)\n
Series 6: Sports: Fantasy Baseball - Fantasy Baseball and Fantasy Baseball Game\n
Series 7: Correspondence - Includes incoming and outgoing correspondence of Jack Kerouac, and the incoming and outgoing correspondence of Jack Kerouac's childhood friend Sebastian Sampas (in Subseries 7.3 and 7.4)\n
Series 8: Personal Papers - This series includes educational documents (including school reports and grade cards); biographical documents (including official documents such as Jack Kerouac's passport, birth certificates, marriage certificates and divorce papers); and other miscellaneous personal papers such as Jack Kerouac's address book.\n
Series 9: Artwork - This series includes Jack Kerouac's artwork and some artwork by Kerouac's contemporaries that Kerouac collected\n
Series 10: Writings and Miscellaneous Papers by Others - Includes press cuttings, tearsheets, photographs, notes and artwork by Kerouac's contemporaries\n
Series 11: Photographs - Box 81: There are 53 photographs of Jack Kerouac (pictured alone), and 47 photographs of Jack Kerouac with members of his family and friends. There are also 131 photographs of Jack Kerouac's family members and various friends (in which Jack Kerouac does not appear), and 24 photographs of members of the Sampas family. There are also 13 photographs of Jack Kerouac's cats, and 5 photographs of domestic exteriors. Some photographs in this collection are annotated by Jack Kerouac. His annotations sometimes identify persons and places, and provide dates. Other annotations are provided by John Sampas. Total number of photographs: 273. [The photograph of Jack Kerouac in the Chinese restaurant, holding a teacup, was taken by Joel Cohen. This photograph was acquired separately, and was not previously part of Jack Kerouac's archive.\n
Series 12: Publishing and Other Contracts for works by Jack Kerouac - Jack Kerouac's publishing contracts, arranged alphabetically by title of work. Some contracts have Kerouac's holograph notes.\n
Series 13: Financial Papers - Boxes 83 and 84 contain Jack Kerouac's canceled checks, from 1959 to 1969. Many checks are counter-signed by Jack Kerouac's mother, Gabrielle Kerouac. Box 85 contains Jack Kerouac's bank statements.\n
Series 14: Maps - Includes maps used by Jack Kerouac between 1953 and 1968.\n
Series 15: Miscellaneous Printed Material - Includes sheet music for "Kerouac," and newspaper cuttings relating to Kerouac's athletic career and reviews of Kerouac's work\n
Series 16: Realia - Includes personal items owned and used by Jack Kerouac, including his Buddhist prayer bells, harmonicas, pocket watch, wallets, spectacles, shoes and crutches.\n
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Recommended Citation
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Jack Kerouac Papers, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library
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