KEROUAC, Jack (1922–1969). Autograph letter to Allen Ginsberg, [Ozone Park, NY], 17 August 1945.

Three pages (214 × 138mm) on one bifolium, in pencil (lightly toned).

“Oh,” he said, “do you sell books?”
“No—but I have some with me.”

Unpublished autograph letter to Ginsberg, then training at Sheepshead Bay, recounting his summer job in the Catskills, a night out with William Burroughs and a passing reference to Thomas Wolfe. Returning to his parent’s apartment in Ozone Park from the Jewish resort in the Catskills where he had worked part of the summer as a busboy, Kerouac recounts to Ginsberg an encounter with a “yiddishe kopfe” who takes in interest in his reading: André Gide’s The Counterfeiters (deemed by the stranger a “very good book”) and Plato’s Republic (“not so good”). At this time, Ginsberg is undergoing maritime training at Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. Kerouac tells Ginsberg that William Burroughs will be joining him at Sheepshead, whom Jack had gone out with recently after Burroughs returned to New York from visiting his parents in St. Louis: “There was much drinking and much charming madness.” Later, Kerouac concludes by chastizing Ginsberg and the tone of his recent letters to Kerouac: “Never would you subscribe to ‘Thomas Wolfish fiery rejection and romantic disapproval’ et toutes ca. It pains me, my friend, it pains me.”

Sotheby’s, New York, 8 December 2023, lot 38