Neal Cassady

Autobiographical writing by the "hero" of Jack Kerouac's On the road.

The First Third

Letters from Prison 1958-60

Grace Beats Karma

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“Dave Moore's work on this collection is simply awesome.... It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever.” —Carolyn Cassady Neal Cassady is best remembered today as Jack Kerouac’s muse and the basis for the character “Dean Moriarty” in Kerouac’s classic On The Road, and as one of Ken Kesey’s merriest of Merry Pranksters, the driver of the psychedelic bus “Further,” immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This collection brings together more than two hundred letters to Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes, and other Beat generation luminaries, as well as correspondence between Neal and his wife, Carolyn. These amazing letters cover Cassady’s life between the ages of 18 and 41 and finish just months before his death in February 1968. Brilliantly edited by Dave Moore, this unique collection presents the “Soul of the Beat Generation” in his own words—sometimes touching and tender, sometimes bawdy and hilarious. Here is the real Neal Cassady—raw and uncut.

Collected Letters, 1944-1967

La Beat Generation c'est Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs : trois écrivains qui allaient bousculer durablement l'Amérique. Mais l'étincelle, celui qui a mis le feu aux poudres, s'appelle Neal Cassady. Il est l'alter ego, le "frère de sang" de Jack Kerouac qui en fait le héros de "Sur la Route" et du reste de son oeuvre. Il est charmeur, flamboyant et excessif, dans la vie comme dans ses lettres. Ces lettres fulgurantes qui impressionnent et enthousiasment. "Elles se rangent parmi les meilleures choses jamais écrites en Amérique" s'enflamme Kerouac qui s'en inspirera dans ses romans, allant même jusqu'à s'en approprier des pages entières. Inédites en français, ces lettres étourdissantes font enfin entendre les propres mots de celui qui reste "l'âme de la Beat Generation" - parfois tendres et touchants, parfois insolents et délirants. Voici le véritable Neal Cassady, brut et intégral.

Lettres 1944-1950

Un truc très beau qui contient tout

Margaret Atwood

Joyce Carol Oates

Maya Angelou

Carolyn Cassady

A powerful poem for peace by one of the great voices of contemporary literature, Maya Angelou, seizes the soul; Margaret Atwood's insightful, often amusing essay on poetics inspires; Beat legend Carolyn Cassady's intriguing new prose piece explores the energies that create and sustain all life; a high-speed letter from Beat icon Neal Cassady sweeps one away with his thoughts on intellect and the arts; acclaimed renaissance man Leonard Cohen's poem excites both the imagination and emotions; James Dean's hard-hitting poem gives a brutal glimpse into the acidic mixture of love and hate the legendary actor had for his father (a scan of Dean's actual poem appears with photos from a private collection); Bangladesh poet Taslima Nasrin, who had to flee her country following death threats by Islamic fanatics, contributed a poem which reveals much through the rape of two young sisters who are ordered by a judge to be whipped in public for speaking out against the man who raped them; Sue Russell shatters the Hollywood portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the movie MONSTER with her probing essay. There's also Sonia Sanchez's startling poem about a mother torn between love for her 7-year-old daughter and addiction to crack; Irish poet Eabhan Ni Shuileabhain's intense journey into the minds of the main people involved in executing a criminal at the time of execution; and even more powerful work by Tony Curtis, Joyce Carol Oates, C. K. Williams, Yoko Ono, Norman Mailer, Daisy Zamora, J. T. LeRoy, Joanne Kyger, John Gilmore, Tess Gallagher, Richard Kostelanetz, Marc Smith, Alice Notley, Billy Collins, Aram Saroyan, Diane di Prima, John Updike, in total 91 great talents. After reading this landmark anthology, you'll feel as if you'd lived intensely in the skins of many different people in different parts of the world. Highly recommended as a rich resource for teachers and a library basic.

Best World Poetry & Prose

Van Gogh's Ear

Letters written by Cassidy to his family and godfather while serving a sentence for selling marijuana.

Letters from Prison, 1958-60

A letter from Neal Cassady to his best friend and travelling companion Jack (On the Road) Kerouac.Kerouac received the letter from Cassady in 1950 and later told the Paris Review that it had inspired 'On theRoad' along with his new literary style; referring to it as 'the greatest piece of writing I ever saw'. The energy ofCassady's fast-paced, free-flowing, confessional prose pulsates through the 15,000 word missive; bringinggloriously to life the personality of one of the most high profile figures in literary, and Beat movement, history.This incredibly illusive artefact, which describes in explicit detail his relationship with Joan Anderson ('aperfect beauty of loveliness that I forgot everything else'), had been missing for 60 years when it was discovered in an attic in Oakland, USA, in 2014. Legal machinations over its ownership ensued and it has not been published in its entirety...until now.This much-anticipated letter is now reproduced in full, with an introduction by Beat scholar ProfessorA. Robert Lee. This jewel of Beat history also includes a range of photographs of the writers and a raresepia drawing of Neal by his former wife, writer and artist Carolyn Cassady.

The Joan Anderson Letter

Encompassing more than twenty years in the life of one of the leading lights of the Beat Generation, this collection of more than two hundred letters includes Cassady's correspondence with his wife, Carolyn, as well as with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes, and other members of his literary milieu. Original. 25,000 first printing.

Neal Cassady

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