On the Road: The Original Scroll

The legendary 1951 scroll draft of On the Road, published as Kerouac originally composed it   “The sparse and unassuming scroll is the living version [of On the Road] for our time. . . . It is a dazzling piece of writing.”—The New York Times Book Review   During three weeks in 1951, Jack Kerouac wrote the first draft of On the Road—typed as a long, single-spaced paragraph on eight sheets of tracing paper, which he taped together to form a scroll. Representing the identifiable point at which his vision and narrative voice first came together in a sustained burst of creative energy, the scroll is the “uncut” version of Kerouac’s masterpiece—rougher, wilder, and more sexually explicit than the edited work that appeared in 1957. On the Road: The Original Scroll is Kerouac’s signature achievement—and one of the most significant, celebrated, and provocative documents in American literary history.