KEROUAC, Jack.

Big Sur.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy , 1962.

$75,000.00

In Stock Item Number: RRB-150040

Custom Clamshell Box

Hand made by the Harcourt Bindery. ~90 days

+$450

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“And it's finally only in the woods you get that nostalgia for "cities" at last, you dream of long gray journeys to cities where soft evenings'll unfold like Paris": FIRST EDITION OF BIG SUR; SIGNED BY JACK KEROUAC

First edition of Kerouac's poignant masterpiece of self-reflection. Octavo, original cloth. Boldly signed by Jack Kerouac on the front free endpaper. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Janet Halverson. Exceptionally rare with no other signed examples traced at auction since publication, while signed copies of On the Road have rarely appeared at auction, no signed examples of Big Sur have appeared since publication.

In this 1962 novel, Kerouac's alter ego Jack Duluoz, overwhelmed by success and excess, gravitates back and forth between wild binges in San Francisco and an isolated cabin on the California coast where he attempts to renew his spirit and clear his head of madness and alcohol. Only nature seems to restore him to a sense of balance. In the words of Allen Ginsberg, Big Sur "reveals consciousness in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion." "It has a swing and a concern with living, a feeling for nature, a self-doubting humor and an awareness of posture which puts it squarely in the powerful tradition of American folk writing. Stunning and vivid" (Sunday Times). A film adaptation of the novel, directed by Michael Polish, was released in 2013. The cast includes Jean-Marc Barr as Kerouac, Josh Lucas as Neal Cassady, Radha Mitchell as Carolyn Cassady, Henry Thomas as Whalen, Anthony Edwards as Ferlinghetti, Balthazar Getty as McClure, Patrick Fischler as Welch, and Stana Katic as Kandel.