Books

The follow-up to and set in the immediate aftermath of the author s groundbreaking On the Road , the Dharma Bums is a semi-autobiographical account of the author/ protagonist s attempts to reconcile his love of the natural world (hiking etc.) with jazz clubs and drinking and parties in the city in the context of the Zen Buddhism that Kerouac had become interested in. This is the first edition, published by Viking, New York, in 1958, and is in Very Good condition, with just the dust jacket a bit scuffed but otherwise clean and tight throughout.

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.