Joan Anderson Letter to be Auctioned

[Gary Gillman]

Have any Beat literature fans been following this story? This famous letter, from Neil Cassady to Jack Kerouac, was discovered intact some years ago albeit presumed lost for many decades. It will be auctioned soon by Christies.

This is a major find in American letters, whatever one thinks of the Beat legacy.

I don't in any way doubt the authentication done which must have been rigorous, but any ideas out there why Allen Ginsberg wasn't able to get the letter back from the publisher in whose records it languished for so long? From what I've read, Allen had sent the letter to the publisher, in hopes of publication for Neil, after his friend Gerd Stern, to whom he had loaned it, gave it back to him. Kerouac had given it to Allen initially.

It just seems strange to me Allen would have forgotten such a thing. Yet he must have (I guess) since he was famously supportive of his colleagues into the 60s, even after Kerouac soured on him due to his politics and the public persona he was developing. That letter would have helped Jack and Neil in the 60s, both creatively and financially, I can't imagine Allen wouldn't have done everything possible to get it to them despite the rift that had developed with Kerouac, had he been able.

Any thoughts/ideas?

[sandy14]

The story at the time was that the letter had been destroyed - it had blown off a houseboat and ended up in the water. What was left of it (1st four pages) was published in Cassidy's 1st third and has been circulating on the internet for some time now.

It is entirely possible that something ended up leaving the houseboat, but it wasn't what everyone thought it was - and with everything being done by long distance (slow) communication it is entirely possible that Ginsberg and Kerouac believed the papers destroyed. I certainly don't think there was any malice in it. After all, the "On the Road" original scroll was believed lost until it resurfaced in the late 90s - and it has got teeth marks from a dog in it.

It took a number of years for On the Road to go from a manuscript to a published novel, and the significance of Cassidy's letter as a source of inspiration to Kerouac was hardly seemed important. Then the book exploded on the scene and folk were asking questions.

I think it would be fair to say that the Beats were spending their time trying to get published, and the need to have an archive came afterwards.