Book · Open Library
- Author
- Jack Kerouac
- First published
- 1957
- Editions
- 152
- Subjects
- Beat generation, Fiction, Autobiographical fiction, Beat generation in literature, History and criticism, American Autobiographical fiction, Literature, Classic Literature
via Open Library
Key facts
- Author
- Jack Kerouac
- Cover artist
- Bill English
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Beat , stream of consciousness
- Set in
- New York , Chicago , Denver , San Francisco , elsewhere in the U.S. , and Mexico , 1947–1950
- Publisher
- Viking Press
- Publication date
Article
On the Road is a 1957 novel by American author Jack Kerouac, inspired by his travels across the United States. It is widely regarded as a defining work of the postwar Beat Generation, following a group of friends living for the moment against a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and rebellion.
The novel is a roman à clef, featuring characters based on central figures of the Beat movement. Kerouac appears as the narrator under the name Sal Paradise. The idea for the book developed during the late 1940s through a series of notebooks and was later typed on a continuous reel of paper over a three-week period in April 1951. It was first published by Viking Press in 1957.