On the Road: Jack Kerouac's manuscript scroll

'On the Road' is one of the defining books of the Beat Generation. Written over a period of three weeks in April 1951 in manic bursts of what Allen Ginsberg referred to as 'spontaneous bop prosody', Jack Kerouac typed the manuscript on rolls of tracing paper, which he taped together into a long scroll to avoid replacing paper at the end of the page and interrupting his creative flow.

We are delighted to welcome the 120-foot long scroll to London for the first time, which will be on display in a specially-constructed case and alongside sound and printed materials from the Library's collections.