With the release of the recent movie trailer for the film adaptation of ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac ( 1922 – 1969 ) I thought it would be fun to share a LINK to a website where they have collected a ton of different covers for this famous book. Down below are just a few examples but if you visit the SITE you’ll be shocked by how many there are & it’s also sort of an interesting study on Graphic Design. Speaking of which, the drawing you see up above was actually done by Jack Kerouac has his idea of what the book jacket should look like. Strangely, the Publisher never considered it and even after all the covers that have been made over the years this version has never popped-up. It’s also interesting to note, about the website, that the Book Covers & Dust Jackets shown there are in English, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, French, etc…

ON THE ROAD was written in 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. The book is mostly autobiographical in nature. It portrays the story of a fierce personal quest for meaning and belonging. This comes at an interesting point in American history when conformity was praised and outsiders were suspect. This was during the start of the Cold War. The book instantly became a major hit and it is considered a defining work of America’s “Beat Generation”. One thing that is pretty interesting about the creation of this book was the fact that Jack Kerouac wrote it on one solid piece of paper that he called “The Scroll”. He taped many pieces of teletype paper together to achieve this. The “Scroll” still exists & can be seen in the photo down below.

Earlier I mentioned the “new movie” coming out and you can see that trailer at the bottom of this post. But first, I think it would be best to view another video where Jack Kerouac made an early appearance on TV’s “The Steve Allen Show” in 1959. He reads from the book and it’s pretty interesting to not only hear his original voice but it also gives you an idea of “the rhythm in which he wrote it”. Many Literary Critics have labeled the style of this book as a “Jazz Piece” because of it’s continuous flow.