On the Road
EXCEEDINGLY RARE PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF KEROUAC’S MASTERPIECE. “To Peter
Inscribed by Kerouac in red crayon taking up the full front free endpaper:
and Liza
Fosbergh,
Writing in red
crayon in memory
of The Red House.
Jack Kérouac
(idiot).
[The final line added in pencil.]
Presentation copies of the first edition of On the Road are exceptionally scarce in the market. (We can locate on only six inscribed first editions in public auction records.) The present inscription is especially personal, and vivid: Kerouac writes in red crayon, accents his own surname as “Kérouac,” calls himself “idiot,” and adds the playful pencil epithet “St. Jack of the Germs.”
The recipients, the author and editor Elizabeth (Liza) Fosburgh and her husband, conservationist and writer Pieter (Peter) W. Fosburgh” had a house in Cherry Plain, NY, which may be “The Red House” Kerouac refers to. The inscription fills the whole page, with Kerouac’s signature alone running the width of the page and his initials over an inch tall.
Provenance: Peter and Liza Fosburgh, by presentation from the author; Sotheby’s New York, 13 December 2000, lot 64.
New York: Viking Press, 1957. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom box. Book near-fine, with a slight lean and small repair at spine end.; iconic original dust jacket with some light edge wear.
AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION OF THE DEFINING NOVEL OF THE BEAT GENERATION, WITH A PARTICULARLY LARGE AND EXPRESSIVE KEROUAC INSCRIPTION.
Price: $145,000 .