An "exhilarating" (Chicago Tribune) selection of Jack Kerouac's most personal, truthful, and mesmerizing letters that trace his life and craft--edited by Ann Charters

"As we just now begin to map fully the fallout of [the Beat Generation's] creative explosion, these letters offer an invaluable blueprint to the intricate, high-yield ballistics that went into creating it."--San Francisco Examiner

It was in his letters that Jack Kerouac set down the raw material that he transmuted into his novels, exploring and refining the spontaneous prose style that became his trademark. The letters in this volume, written between 1940, when Kerouac was a freshman at college, and 1956, immediately before his breathless leap into celebrity with the publication of On the Road, offer invaluable insights into Kerouac's family life, his friendships with Neal and Carolyn Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and William S. Burroughs, his travels, love affairs, and literary apprenticeships.

At once fascinating reading and a major addition to Kerouac scholarship, here is a rare portrait of the writer as a young adventurer of immense talent, energy, and ambition in the midst of writing and living an American legend.