In April 1951, over the course of three weeks, Jack Kerouac wrote the first version of On the Road - typewritten with single-spacing, without paragraphs, on eight sheets of thin tracing paper, which he then glued together to form a scroll. The "scroll" is the "uncut" version of Kerouac's masterpiece - raw, wild, and unapologetically sexual, compared to the revised version published in 1957. The original manuscript is Kerouac's most iconic achievement - and one of the most significant, well-known, and provocative documents in the history of American literature.

"[...] this is the meaning of On the Road. What does its narrator, Sal Paradise, tell us? 'The only ones who matter to me are the crazy ones, the ones who are crazy to live, mad to talk, desperate to be saved, who desire everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles [...]'. This quest brings Sal on the road to Denver and San Francisco, Los Angeles, Texas, and Mexico, sometimes with Dean, his hero-saint friend, sometimes on his own.

[...] There are passages in On the Road where the writing possesses such beauty that it almost takes your breath away. There is the description of a car trip across the country that closely resembles a train journey recounted by Thomas Wolfe in Of Time and the River. There are details of a trip to Mexico (and an interlude in a Mexican brothel) that are both terrifying, tender, and funny. And, ultimately, there is a description of jazz unlike any other in American fiction, whether for its insight, its style, or its masterful technique. On the Road is a great novel!"

(New York Times on the first edition) "The novel that evolved into On the Road was undoubtedly the book that young people needed in 1957, but the spare and unpretentious original manuscript is the vibrant version of our own era [...]. A stunning text."

(Luc Sante, The New York Times Book Review on the original manuscript)