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  • Published: 13 May 2011
  • ISBN: 9780241951538
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $22.99

On the Road




The exhilerating novel that defined the Beat Generation

'What's your road, man? - holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow.'

Sal Paradise, young and innocent, joins the slightly crazed Dean Moriarty on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their hedonistic search for release or fulfilment through drink, sex, drugs and jazz becomes an exploration of personal freedom, a test of the limits of the American Dream.

A brilliant blend of fiction and autobiography, Jack Kerouac's exhilarating novel defined the new 'Beat' generation and became the bible of the counter culture.

  • Published: 13 May 2011
  • ISBN: 9780241951538
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $22.99

Other books in the series

About the author

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922. In 1947, enthused by bebop, the rebel attitude of his friend Neal Cassidy, and the throng of hobos, drug addicts and hustlers he encountered in New York, he decided to discover America and hitchhhike across the country. His writing was openly autobiographical and he developed a style he referred to as 'spontaneous prose' which he used to record the experiences of the Beat Generation. Among his many novels are On the Road, Maggie Cassidy, The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. He died in 1969.

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Praise for On the Road

Pop writing at its best. It changed the way I saw the world, making me yearn for fresh experience

Hanif Kureishi, Independent on Sunday

On the Road sold a trillion Levis and a million espresso machines, and also sent countless kids on the road. The alienation, the restlessness, the dissatisfaction were already there waiting when Kerouac pointed out the road

William Burroughs