Books

[Beat Novel] FIRST EDITION. Octavo (21 x 14cm), pp.[8]; 244; [4]. Publisher's black cloth with titles in green and silver. Top edge light green. With the dust-jacket designed by Bill English, priced at $3.95. With occasional light marginal pencil marks. Light bumping to cloth. Jacket rubbed, with bruises and chips to edges, as well as a few creases and closed tears. Very good. Published a year after 'On the Road,' Kerouac's 'Dharma Bums' continues in the same vein of 'Kerouac-ian' existentialism, as the semi-autobiographical characters climb mountains in search of truth.

The Dharma Bums is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The semi-autobiographical story is based on the author's experiences during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac.