The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, First Edition in Original Dust Jacket, 1958

Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. New York: The Viking Press, 1958. First edition. Octavo. Black cloth boards with silver and metallic green lettering. In the original illustrated dust jacket.

Presented is the first edition printing of The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. The book was first published in New York by The Viking Press on October 2, 1958, with a print run of 13,000 copies. The book is presented in the original black cloth boards, with silver and metallic green lettering to the front and spine, and original illustrated dust jacket, designed by Bill English. 

This is Kerouac’s celebrated follow-up to the classic of his generation, On the Road, published just a year later. As scholar Ann Charters noted, “There were three books that really shaped Kerouac’s public image, the three that came out within a year of each other in 1957 and 1958: On the Road, The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums”. Together, these works established Kerouac as a prominent literary voice of the Beat movement and captured the restless spiritual searching of a generation.

The novel follows two exuberant young men in pursuit of “Dharma, or Truth,” as described on the original dust jacket flap. Their search for meaning draws them from the coffeehouses and parties of San Francisco’s counterculture into the solitude of the Sierra Nevada mountains, where Zen Buddhism, wilderness, and poetry become intertwined. The book’s celebrated mountain-climbing passages and meditations on solitude reflect Kerouac’s growing fascination with Buddhism and Eastern philosophy during the late 1950s.

Like much of Kerouac’s fiction, The Dharma Bums is partially autobiographical, with its principal characters modeled on Kerouac himself and fellow Beat writers and poets, particularly Gary Snyder, who appears in fictionalized form as Japhy Ryder. 

CONDITION:

Near fine condition. Octavo. Black cloth boards with metallic-lettered titles. Inscription on front pastedown. Some toning on endpapers. Some pen underlining. Sharp corners. Very good + jacket. Original black jacket designed by Bill English, with an illustration of two mountain climbers to the front panel and a portrait of the author by Keith Jennison on the rear panel. Light surface abrasions and chipping. Not price clipped, $3.95. Jacket protected in mylar.

Dimensions: 8 1/4" H x 5 3/4" W x 1 1/4" D.

Accompanied by our company's letter of authenticity.