KEROUAC, Jack (1922-1969). Autograph letter signed ("Jack”) to Ed White, [20] April [1951].

Octavo. Single leaf, torn from larger sheet of yellow lined paper; both sides; approx. two-inch closed tear to lower half; pencil. With envelope addressed in type, postmarked New York, New York.

“I’ve written 86,000 words almost finishing On The Road...”

An important letter, it records his current progress with On the Road, and Kerouac predicts “finishing it by this Sat. night April ? – I don’t know the date nor care and life is a bowl of pretty juicy cherries that I want one by one biting first with my cheery stain’d teeth.”

Kerouac is in high gear in this quick and exuberant missive: he is enthusiastic about seeing White in June calling the visit, “a coming event of first- rate superior importance,” and, happy to anticipate a rest from his labors, proposes that they “celebrate dull life and make the cherries dance the Kerry dance, which is the Kerouac-White dance of life, no Ellis – Right?” in a reference to Havelock Ellis’ book, The Dance of Life. He closes with the remark, “American women are making it awfully easy for American men in the city of N.Y. this Springtime.”