Big news! – the official publication (by the Black Spring Press Group) of the legendary Joan Anderson Letter – The Joan Anderson Letter – The Holy Grail of the Beat Generation, an original reproduction of the letter with an introduction, time-line and bibliography by Beat scholar, A Robert Lee – “the ur-text of the Beats”, as it has been rightly described, “the greatest piece of writing I ever saw”, in the words of Jack Kerouac, the text that stimulated the writing of On The Road and launched the entire Beat movement, famously elusive, belatedly re-discovered, mired in legal controversy, purchased by a University archive, and now gloriously available (in, albeit, so far, a limited edition). Big news indeed!
For more details read Kurt Hemmer‘s illuminating interview with the editor (going into informed detail about the edition) – here
Jan Herman reviews the book for International Times
For earlier Allen Ginsberg Project postings about the letter – see here and here
We salute the madcap genius of the great Neal Cassady