"I Sold My Novel to Harcourt Brace"

KEROUAC, Jack (1922-1969). Autograph letter signed (“BET-A-THOUSAND KEROUAC”) to Ed White, 29 March 1949. Quarto. Two leaves; rectos only; holes punched; small stain to second leaf; closed tears where creased; lightly worn at edges, not affecting text; pencil. With envelope addressed in type and autograph, postmarked Jamaica, New York. "Well, boy, guess what? I sold my novel to Harcourt Brace – (after one rejection from Little, Brown) – and got a $1,000 advance. Mad? – I tell you it’s mad. Mad? – me mad? Heh heh heh.” An important letter, marking the sale and imminent publication of Kerouac's first novel, The Town and the City . White read the manuscript in the spring of 1948 would later recall a chance meeting with Allen Ginsberg shortly afterward, on 116th Street in New York across the street from Butler Library, on the stone stoop of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity house. With the huge manuscript in hand, “Ginsy” had a happy if bewildered look – smiling, but exhausted. In response to the observation that snobbish types on campus often characterized Jack as naïve and non-intellectual, Ginsberg would answer: “He is, but this is a great book.” Jack regretted not being in Paris, and now that the book had been sold he speculated that he could join the adventure. “Why aren’t I in France?” he asks. He mentions possibilities for the future, including getting a fellowship within a year or getting a job on a ship. “Many angles,” he writes. His letter closes with the following order: I command you, as King of the Thousand Dollars, to write me a long and informative epistle, Sirs. BET-A-THOUSAND KEROUAC Published in: Selected Letters: 1957–1969 , ed. A. Charters, pp. 185-187.

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