Jack Kerouac wrote On The Road largely in a three-week fit in 1951. He typed on a single scroll of paper with no paragraphs, no page breaks, and using the real names of his characters--Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady.
When the book was published six years later, the text was edited into a more typical format. Allusions to drug and sex were toned down or cut, and names were changed into thinly-vewiled counterparts.
To mark the book's 50th anniversary next year, On the Road will be issued in its original, unedited format, according to NPR.
The Boston Globe reports that "It remains to be seen exactly how they will present the original Kerouac story, which was typed as one freewheeling, single-spaced paragraph. Eager to write freely and continuously, without pausing to pull finished pages from his typewriter and insert new ones, Kerouac typed instead on 12-foot rolls of paper that he later Scotch-taped together..."
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