The Dharma Bums.

KEROUAC, Jack.

Item Number: 132392

New York: The Viking Press, 1958.

First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original black cloth. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket dust jacket. Jacket design by Bill English. An exceptional example.

"There were three books that really shaped Kerouac’s public image, the three that came out within a year of each other in 1957 and 1958: On the Road, The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums" (Charters, 295). One of the best and most popular of Kerouac's autobiographical novels, The Dharma Bums is based on experiences the writer had during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the book's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is thinly disguised on the poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac.