Lot 429
Kerouac, Jack. Corrected typescript carbon copy of a story, "Visions of Gerard" signed ("John Kerouac") in pencil at the end, 3½ pages, 11 x 8½ in., no place, no date. Single-spaced carbon typescript on onion-skin paper, with extensive manuscript revisions by Kerouac on the first page, and a few on the others, totaling 45 words in his hand. Probably the earliest extant fragment of Kerouac's Legend of Duluoz. This draft typescript, identified by Kerouac on the first page as a "short short," is the germ of the novel of the same title, which was written in January 1956.
Kerouac tells stories of his saintly eight year-old brother Gerard feeding birds on his windowsill, his rescue of a mouse, which his cat then ate, and others which appear in the novel. Here Kerouac uses the name Daoulas as his family name; possibly connecting this draft with his unfinished Michael Daoulas book, written in 1945; he had also used that name before settling on "Martin" for the family in The Town and the City and before adopting a more French sounding version "Duluoz." The cat is named "Kewpie" but changed in manuscript to "Ti-Gris (Little Gray)." In a lengthy confessional letter to Neal Cassady, dated December 28, 1950, Kerouac tells these same stories, he writes of the mouse and cat story: "My mother heard every word of it; the text has been translated to me a million times, now it's garbled. If I could only have heard his exact words. Don't you see, Neal, I never told you, I believe my brother was a saint…I could not live without this confession." Folded twice for mailing.
Estimated Value $5,000 - 7,500.
Maurice F. Neville Collection, Part II - Sotheby's New York, Nov 16, 2004, lot 366.
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| Realized $5,700 |
