Kerouac, Jack

Carbon typescript headed "Plans for Artistic Cr𒀰eation" an early articulation of Kerouac's plans for the dulo꧙uz cycle

One page (279 x 212 mm), with underlinings and the date "1951" — probably in Kerouac's hand — stamped in red ink at upper right: "Please return to John Simon Guggenheim Memori🦂al Foundation." Red buckram chemise and half morocco gilt folding-case, patterned boards.

"My project: writing and getting a third novel published. I expect to begin next Spring when my second novel On the Road is finished."

In 1951, the twenty-nine year old author (still calling himself "John Kerouac") submitted this statement to the Guggenheim Foundation in the hopes of obtaining a grant. It is an early and important formulation of Kerouac's idea of creating a sweeping Proustian cycle of autobiographical novels. The cycle would ultimately include sixteen novels, including On the Road, The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, Satori in Paris, Visions of Cody, Doctor Sax, and others. In the proposal, Kerouac specifically asks for funds to travel to French-speaking Canada for research for a novel to be titled The Vanity of St. Louis. He then goes on to outline his larger ambitions: "On the Road, the work I'm doing now . . . is in the third draft. On the Road is the first, as the French Canadian novel will be the second in a series of connected novels revolving around a central plan that eventually will be my life, a structure of types of people and destinies belonging to this generation and referable to one another in one immense ci🌌rcle of acquaintance. "This will establish a disciplined s🎶ystem for my purpose, which is the expression of lifetimes of indefinable charm in the only way it can be done."

PROVENANCE:

Airick Kredell (Sotheby's Nꦬew York, 10 December 2003, lot 104)