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Lot 27
KEROUAC, JACK. 1922-1969. Typed Manuscript with Holograph Annotations, being a draft chapter of Desolation Angels, 8 pp, 4to, n.p., [1961-64],
11 April 2016, 10:00 EDT
New YorkUS$20,000 - US$30,000
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KEROUAC, JACK. 1922-1969.
Typed Manuscript with Holograph Annotations, being a draft chapter of Desolation Angels, 8 pp, 4to, n.p., [1961-64], headed "Conclusion of 1961 Mexico City Manuscript (In Green Handwritten Notebooks) Starting From Notebook 10 at Black Diamond," with 27 insertions, corrections, and deletions in pencil in Kerouac's hand, "'64" in red ink at the top of first page, some faint toning to first leaf, old paper clip marks to first and last leaves.
DRAFT CHAPTER OF DESOLATION ANGELS, DIFFERING SUBSTANTIALLY FROM AND INCLUDING MUCH THAT WAS LEFT OUT OF THE FINAL VERSION. On a sojourn in Mexico City in June of 1961, Kerouac wrote some 50,000 words towards a manuscript he tentatively titled "An American Passed Here," which detailed events from 1956-57 and picked up where an earlier manuscript (written in 1956 and titled "Desolation Angels") left off. Editor Ellis Amburn at Coward McCann suggested combining the two manuscripts, and together they were published as Desolation Angels (1965) with "An American Passed Here" configured as the second part of the novel and retitled "Passing Through." The present manuscript was typed from the notebooks in which Kerouac originally recorded "An American Passed Here/Passing Through," probably for submission to Amburn.
The manuscript describes events from Kerouac's July 1957 visit to Mexico City (a few months before the publication of On the Road), beginning with his seeking out a room near his friend Bill Garver ("Old Bull") only to find that Garver is dead and the room is crawling with bedbugs; relocating to a downtown hotel where "to my horror I discovered I was sharing the same ceiling with another man's bathroom;" falling asleep and having a strange, visceral dream which he describes in great detail; waking up to the shaking of a massive earthquake (the July 28, 1957 Mexico City earthquake); strolling the city to survey the damage; getting back on a bus towards Orlando, Florida via Brownsville, Texas, Lafayette, LA, and Tallahassee, during which trip he comes down with the mumps; arriving back in Orlando where he lies in bed for days in fever and pain; and concluding: "Some bums from Time Magazine come and want to take my picture saying my book 'Road' has been bought by the movies and the Book of the Month people (a lie.) I have to crawl out of bed, dress, and pose sick. They rush off and write measley lies around what I tried to tell them. They do not know that pride goeth before a fall."
Some of the events described in the typescript survive in the final two chapters of Desolation Angels, where Kerouac brings to a close the 1957 Mexico City visit by mentioning the death of Old Bull, the downtown hotel, and the earthquake. However the language there is extensively reworked and the events highly condensed, there is no mention of the dream or the journey home, and numerous other specific details included in the typescript are left out.
Kerouac would later propose—in a letter of September 27, 1968 to his agent Stirling Lord— to use the events described in the manuscript as the starting point for "Beat Spotlight," a novel he was working on at the time of his death.
DRAFT CHAPTER OF DESOLATION ANGELS, DIFFERING SUBSTANTIALLY FROM AND INCLUDING MUCH THAT WAS LEFT OUT OF THE FINAL VERSION. On a sojourn in Mexico City in June of 1961, Kerouac wrote some 50,000 words towards a manuscript he tentatively titled "An American Passed Here," which detailed events from 1956-57 and picked up where an earlier manuscript (written in 1956 and titled "Desolation Angels") left off. Editor Ellis Amburn at Coward McCann suggested combining the two manuscripts, and together they were published as Desolation Angels (1965) with "An American Passed Here" configured as the second part of the novel and retitled "Passing Through." The present manuscript was typed from the notebooks in which Kerouac originally recorded "An American Passed Here/Passing Through," probably for submission to Amburn.
The manuscript describes events from Kerouac's July 1957 visit to Mexico City (a few months before the publication of On the Road), beginning with his seeking out a room near his friend Bill Garver ("Old Bull") only to find that Garver is dead and the room is crawling with bedbugs; relocating to a downtown hotel where "to my horror I discovered I was sharing the same ceiling with another man's bathroom;" falling asleep and having a strange, visceral dream which he describes in great detail; waking up to the shaking of a massive earthquake (the July 28, 1957 Mexico City earthquake); strolling the city to survey the damage; getting back on a bus towards Orlando, Florida via Brownsville, Texas, Lafayette, LA, and Tallahassee, during which trip he comes down with the mumps; arriving back in Orlando where he lies in bed for days in fever and pain; and concluding: "Some bums from Time Magazine come and want to take my picture saying my book 'Road' has been bought by the movies and the Book of the Month people (a lie.) I have to crawl out of bed, dress, and pose sick. They rush off and write measley lies around what I tried to tell them. They do not know that pride goeth before a fall."
Some of the events described in the typescript survive in the final two chapters of Desolation Angels, where Kerouac brings to a close the 1957 Mexico City visit by mentioning the death of Old Bull, the downtown hotel, and the earthquake. However the language there is extensively reworked and the events highly condensed, there is no mention of the dream or the journey home, and numerous other specific details included in the typescript are left out.
Kerouac would later propose—in a letter of September 27, 1968 to his agent Stirling Lord— to use the events described in the manuscript as the starting point for "Beat Spotlight," a novel he was working on at the time of his death.