Kerouac, Jack | The Town and The City, first edition of his debut novel - photo 1
Kerouac, Jack | The Town and The City, first edition of his debut novel - photo 2

Kerouac, Jack | The Town and The City, first edition of his debut novel

Lot 49
08.12.2023 12:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 762
AuctioneerSotheby´s
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
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Archive
ID 1108768
Lot 49 | Kerouac, Jack | The Town and The City, first edition of his debut novel
Estimate value
$ 600 – 800
Kerouac, Jack
The Town and the City. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950

8vo. Publisher's red cloth, stamped in gilt, spine gilt. Dust jacket by Leo Manso; light wear, especially to joints and head and foot of spine.

The first edition of Kerouac's first novel.

Kerouac chose to be called John for his first publication, changing to Jack for the publication of On the Road. In lot 43, a excited Kerouac shares that his novel has been accepted for publication by Robert Giroux, with whom he worked on the revisions of the work into late 1949. The book was published in 1950 to a considerable print run of 10,500 copies. It did not sell well, and Kerouac felt marred by this initial lack of success until the eventual publication of On the Road in 1957.

On the dust-jacket, Kerouac describes it in a letter to Ed White as: "simple, unostentatious...depicting a river winding through New England countryside" (lot 47).

Kerouac related his novel to one of the basic themes in American literature: "Lowell, like Winesburg, Ohio, or Asheville, North Carolina or Fresno, California or Hawthorne's Salem, is always the place where the darkness of the trees by the river, on a starry night, gives a hint of that inscrutable future Americans are always longing and longing for. And when they find that future, not till then, they begin looking back, with sorrows, and an understanding of how man haunts the earth, pacing, prowling, circling in the shades, and the intelligence of the compass, pointing to nothing in sight save starry passion" (Selected Letters, 1940–1956, p. 221).
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More from Creator

Kerouac, Jack | Typed postcard signed to Ed White; selling stories to buy to buy
Kerouac, Jack | Typed postcard signed to Ed White; selling stories to buy to buy "500 beers for everybody"
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Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter to Allen Ginsberg;
Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter to Allen Ginsberg; "God, I'm going to die this year"
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Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter signed to his girlfriend Lois Sorrells;
Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter signed to his girlfriend Lois Sorrells; "I’ll end up with my ass in the straw"
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Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter signed to Ed White, discussing On the Road, Alene Lee, and Malcolm Cowley
Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter signed to Ed White, discussing On the Road, Alene Lee, and Malcolm Cowley
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Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter to Allen Ginsberg, a blunt letter addressing a rift in their friendship
Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter to Allen Ginsberg, a blunt letter addressing a rift in their friendship
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Kerouac, Jack | Two typed letters to Allen Ginsberg, analyzing his vision of William Blake through his new Buddhist worldview
Kerouac, Jack | Two typed letters to Allen Ginsberg, analyzing his vision of William Blake through his new Buddhist worldview
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Kerouac, Jack | Maggie Cassidy, inscribed to his mother
Kerouac, Jack | Maggie Cassidy, inscribed to his mother
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Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter signed to Allen Ginsberg, refusing to help promote Junkie
Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter signed to Allen Ginsberg, refusing to help promote Junkie
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