The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac [0]
THE DHARMA BUMS
JACK KEROUAC was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a Franco-American family. He attended local Catholic and public schools, and won a scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he met Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. His first novel, The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, first published in 1957, that made Kerouac famous. Publication of his many other books followed, among them The Subterraneans, Big Sur, and The Dharma Bums. Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven.
ANN DOUGLAS is the author of The Feminization of American Culture and Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s. She teaches American Studies at Columbia University and is currently at work on a book about Cold War culture.
Also by Jack Kerouac
THE DULUOZ LEGEND
VISIONS OF GERARD
DOCTOR SAX
MAGGIE CASSIDY
VANITY OF DULUOZ
ON THE ROAD
VISIONS OF CODY
THE SUBTERRANEANS
TRISTESSA
LONESOME TRAVELLER
DESOLATION ANGELS
THE DHARMA BUMS
BOOK OF DREAMS
BIG SUR
SATORI IN PARIS
POETRY
MEXICO CITY BLUES
SCATTERED POEMS
POMES ALL SIZES
HEAVEN AND OTHER POEMS
BOOK OF BLUES
BOOK OF HAIKUS
BOOK OF SKETCHES
OTHER WORK
THE TOWN AND THE CITY
THE SCRIPTURE OF THE GOLDEN ETERNITY
SOME OF THE DHARMA
OLD ANGEL MIDNIGHT
GOOD BLONDE & OTHERS
PULL MY DAISY
TRIP TRAP
PIC
THE PORTABLE JACK KEROUAC
SELECTED LETTERS: 1940–1956
SELECTED LETTERS: 1957–1969
ATOP AN UNDERWOOD
DOOR WIDE OPEN
ORPHEUS EMERGED
DEPARTED ANGELS
WINDBLOWN WORLD
BEAT GENERATION
JACK KEROUAC
The Dharma Bums
Introduction byANN DOUGLAS
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press 1958
Published in Viking Compass edition 1971
Published in Penguin Books 1976
This edition with an introduction by Ann Douglas published 2006
Copyright © John Sampas, Literary Representative of the Estate of Jack Kerouac; John Lash, Executor of the Estate of Jan Kerouac; Nancy Bump; and Anthony M. Sampas, 1958
Introduction copyright © Ann Douglas, 2006
All rights reserved
A brief excerpt from this book appeared in Chicago Review under the title “Meditation in the Woods.”
ISBN: 978-1-1011-9930-5
CIP data available
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Contents
Introduction byANN DOUGLAS
THE DHARMA BUMS
Introduction
“A Hoop for the