Jack Kerouac's On The Road Scroll Sold for Recordbreaking $12m

The original typescript scroll first draft of Jack Kerouac's On The Road has become the most expensive literary manuscript to sell at auction.

Christie's had initially given the 1951 manuscript a $2.5m-$4m estimate following its sale for $2.4m in 2001 but it eventually sold for $12.135m in the Jim Irsay Collection auction

The continuous scroll of semi-translucent paper typed without paragraphs or chapter breaks measures approximately 119ft long by 9 inches wide, and was created by Kerouac who pasted and taped together separate strips in order to feed the paper without interruption through the typewriter platen, the text single-spaced and entirely without paragraphs. 

It features occasional cross-outs by repeated 'x's, and numerous penciled deletions and word changes, in some cases substituting fictional names for the real names of himself and his companions, plus marginal notes in pencil by Kerouac. Kerouac wrote his name and address in pencil on the back of the scroll at the beginning: “John Kerouac, 94-21 134th Street, Richmond Hill, NY”.

Fueled mainly by coffee, he typed for 20 days. After finishing the scroll, his friend Lucien Carr’s dog chewed up the final feet of the manuscript, forcing Kerouac to retype the section. There is a penciled note on the scroll (“DOG ATE (Potchky—a dog)”). 

The scroll was bought by singer-songwriter Zach Bryan who. has an interest in Kerouac’s works and last year bought the St Jean Baptiste Church in Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac's home town. He plans to turn it into a Kerouac museum and it is thought that the scroll will be put on display there.