The Dharma Bums.

KEROUAC, Jack.

$3,000.00

Item Number: 109244

New York: The Viking Press, 1958.

First edition of this classic work which introduced writer Gary Snyder to the world as Japhy Ryder. Octavo, original black cloth. Signed by fellow Beat writer and character in this novel, Gary Snyder on the half-title page. The main characters are the narrator Ray Smith, based on Kerouac, and Japhy Ryder, based on the poet and essayist Gary Snyder, who was instrumental in Kerouac’s introduction to Buddhism in the mid-1950s. Very good in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Bill English.

"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.