NP. Misc on a P fave (for one thing at least, anyway), On the Road

[Mark Kohut]

The myth of pure spontaneous writing, "that's typewriting, not writing"
Truman C snarked.
Jack started it in 1947...typed out all his drafts work (in journal
notebooks he kept) in three weeks of April 1951.
Working titles *The Beat Generation *and *Shades of the Prison House, *a
line from Wordsworth's "Immortality Ode"

Published on September 4 1957, when a fill-in reviewer at the NYT, who was
a beat fan, raved. (Orville Prescott would
not have, all are sure). It was published during the trial for obscenity of
*Howl. *

*On the Road *became a NYT bestseller for 5 weeks, but never higher than
#11...on a list where* Peyton Place *dominated
all those weeks and more.

*"Howl *and O*n the Road *are about things that happened in the forties."

There were 37 million registered vehicles in the US when Jack started
writing his novel, 1947. 67 million when it
was published.

--------------All of this from Louis Menand's *The Free World. *