The 'Road' much traveled

JACK KEROUAC'S "On the Road" has been iconic since it appeared Sept. 5, 1957. A roman à clef about the author's cross-country adventures (as Sal Paradise) with friend Neal Cassady, known in the book as Dean Moriarty, the novel was begun in the late 1940s and completed, famously, in April 1951, in a three-week writing marathon on a 120-foot scroll.

Several new books commemorate the novel's 50th anniversary, including "Road Novels 1957-1960," edited by Douglas Brinkley (Library of America: 864 pp., $35); "Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of 'On the Road' (They're Not What You Think)" by John Leland (Viking: 206 pp., $23.95); and the first publication of Kerouac's unedited "scroll manuscript," "On the Road: The Original Scroll" (Viking: 408 pp., $25.95).
Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac