Jack Kerouac Autograph Letter Signed.

KEROUAC, Jack.

$7,800.00

Item Number: 145634

Rare autograph letter signed by Jack Kerouac to close friend Ed White. Bifoliate leaf, one page covered; pencil. With envelope addressed in autograph, postmarked Jamaica, New York. The letter reads in full, “Fri. Jan. 7 Dear Ed – For reasons completely unexplainable to someone like Beverly I’d on New Year’s Eve made a vow not to leave the house (my hermitage) till I’d accomplished 2 things, (1) a certain piece of writing, (2) a certain term of reading – study and tranquil meditation – so when she called last night I had nothing to say in defense of my private plans + said I’d see her Saturday, + you today, etc. but in conscience I can’t leave this room till I’ve done what I vowed to do – so figure some way to explain to her, boy, you know women better’n I do – Before I head for California in February I’ll drop up to Columbia to see you – As ever, Jack.” The recipient, Edward Divine White Jr. was lifelong friend to Jack Kerouac from 1947 to Kerouac’s death in 1969. The pair exchanged over 90 letters and postcards throughout those years and White notably appeared in Kerouac’s On the Road as the character Tim Gray, in Visions of Cody as Ed Gray, and in Book of Dreams as Al Green and Guy Green. Kerouac and White met in the fall of 1946 at Columbia University through mutual friend Hal Chase, who, that same year, introduced both to  Neal Cassady, a bold and adventurous petty criminal from Denver, Colorado who would become Kerouac’s muse and the hero of On the Road. White is credited with suggesting that Kerouac try, “sketching with words rather than writing conventionally,” in 1951. White was also a longtime friend of Columbia University classmate and Pulitzer Prize winning architecture critic for the San Francisco Chronicle Allan Temko and Columbia University classmate Allen Ginsberg. White’s own forty-year practice (1955 through 1995) as an architect focused on contemporary architecture and historic preservation. In fine condition. Housed in a custom half morocco and folding chemise slipcase.