Beat life in San Francisco - photo 1
Beat life in San Francisco - photo 2

Beat life in San Francisco

Lot 222
07.12.2022 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 4 800
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 859741
Lot 222 | Beat life in San Francisco
Estimate value
$ 6 000 – 9 000
KEROUAC, Jack (1922-1969). Typed letter signed (“Jack”) to Ed White, 12 March 1952. Unpublished.

Octavo. Single leaf; recto and upper third of verso; a few autograph corrections. With envelope addressed in type, crossed out, and corrected in autograph, postmarked San Francisco, California. (Together with:) Autograph postscript, beginning “If you see Jack Fitzgerald.” 12mo.; torn from larger leaf; recto only; six lines of text; pencil.

"Study hard, make good / I love you / Jack.”

By the time Jack typed this short note filled with Kerouacian insights, he had headed West and was already embroiled in emerging Beat life in San Francisco. He had also received a contract for On the Road, “finished in Neal’s attic.” Expecting to ship out on a merchant vessel, he informs White that he expects to be “passing through New York” in a few months. Harboring paranoid anxieties about his whereabouts being known (“do not divulge address to anybody under any circumstances”), Jack tells White to write to him c/o Neal, and, confides his plan to return to New Jersey and live with his mother.

[Together with:]

KEROUAC, Jack (1922-1969). A group of three notes. Comprises: Autograph note signed (“Jack”), announcing his ill-timed visit, “forgetting it was a holiday weekend.” 12mo.; unrelated text in another hand on verso; pencil. (Together with:) Autograph note, giving driving directions to Jack and his mother’s apartment. 12mo.; torn from larger leaf; recto; creased; pencil. (Together with:) Typed note, beginning “This is Ed White’s typewriter.” 8vo.; torn from larger leaf; unrelated text on verso. Three notes mounted to larger sheets [ca. 1953].

When Jack visited the city he had few definite agenda items, aside from an occasional planned party or meeting. He’d stay on the move, through various parts of New York, and in an era before answering machines would often be unsuccessful in finding people home when he’d wander by to visit. In their absences, he would test typewriters – as when he dropped by Jorge Davila’s apartment on 114th Street and finding White out, left behind a note composed at the dining room table on his own old Corona. Or he’d rip a page from his sketchpad that announced his visit or gave directions for getting together at, say, the West End Bar, Ginger’s pad, or his mother’s apartment.

Jack’s mother lived above a neighborhood bar in Ozone Park, and from the bar Jack would carry home a “bom” – his mother’s tea kettle filled with tap beer – with which to entertain guests, or just for himself.
Auction house category:Letters, documents and manuscripts
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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23.11.2022 – 07.12.2022
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