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Sunday, November 11, 2007

NYC Public Library: 'Beat Writer Jack Kerouac Explored in In-Depth Exhibition'

Featuring Famous On the Road Scroll and Treasures from The New York Public Library's Jack Kerouac Archive

Unpublished Manuscripts, Diaries, Journals, Correspondence, Drawings and Paintings, Photographs, and Kerouac's Fantasy Baseball and Horse Racing Materials on Display, along with 60 Feet of the On the Road Scroll

Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac on the Road on view at The New York Public Library from November 9, 2007 - February 24, 2008; March 1 - 16, 2008

The largest assemblage of Jack Kerouac's manuscripts, diaries, journals, notebooks, photographs, paintings, mixed-media artworks, and sketches ever shown will be on display in the exhibition Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac on the Road at The New York Public Library from November 9, 2007 - February 24, 2008 and March 1 - 16, 2008.

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac's seminal novel On the Road, 300 Kerouac and Beat-related materials will be on display, including typescript and manuscript drafts of On the Road. Figuratively and literally at the center of the exhibition will be the iconic 120-foot scroll on which Kerouac, in three weeks in New York City, composed and typed the novel later emended by him in typescripts that are also on display, in three weeks in New York City. The first 60 feet of the scroll, on loan from James Irsay, owner of the National Football League's Indianapolis Colts, will be on view from November 9, 2007 through February 24, 2008. Beatific Soul is drawn almost exclusively from the contents of the Library’s Jack Kerouac Archive (acquired in 2001) and other Beat holdings, including the William S. Burroughs Archive (acquired in 2006), housed in the Library’s Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature; a small group of materials has been selected from other Library collections. With few exceptions, the archival material displayed has never before been seen by the public.
[Note: The original scroll of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road will be on view from Friday, November 9 through Sunday, February 24. The exhibition will be closed from Monday, February 25 through Friday, February 29. Reopening on Saturday, March 1, the exhibition will continue through Sunday, March 16; during this period, a full-size facsimile of the scroll’s first 60 feet will be on view.]

“The arrival of the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On the Road is an important moment in American letters for at least two reasons: first, because Kerouac (1922 –1969) is generally regarded as chief of the triumvirate comprising himself, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, who were fathers of the Beat movement; and second, because the sensation caused by the publication of On the Road brought Kerouac to the attention of a national audience,” said Library President Paul LeClerc. “The New York Public Library could not allow this significant anniversary to pass without a significant exhibition and accompanying publication, especially since in 2001, the Library's Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature acquired the Jack Kerouac Archive.” ...

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