Yes, I'm British. At the time there was really only the Grafton editions of his work in the UK - the novels, no poetry, i think - which were uninspiring in design, but I bought them anyway. I would trawl the second-hand bookshops and occasionally find an older edition of something - Maggie Cassidy, for example, and various versions of OTR - but it wasn't until I visited the States that I got hold of Mexico City Blues, plus Scripture of the Golden Eternity which I'd read about but didn't know existed for real, and a bunch of other Grove Press and City Lights releases.
An older cousin gave me a copy of On the Road for Christmas when I was 14 in the early eighties. I put it aside, not knowing anything about it. Then, having read a couple of Dylan biographies plus No-one Here Gets Out Alive, the Jim Morrison bio, and seeing this book being mentioned as influential to them, I picked it up. I then bought everything Kerouac had written and, in 1993, when I visited San Francisco by chance or happen-chance, I discovered as many old haunts as possible, including the house where the Cassady's had lived, and of course City Lights where I exchanged a couple of words with Lawrence Ferlinghetti - thus making my life complete - and, finally, got hold of a copy of Mexico City Blues, apparently unavailable in the UK at that time.
When you say that Mexico City Blues was unavailable in the UK, can I assume you were/are based in Britain?
Yes, I'm British. At the time there was really only the Grafton editions of his work in the UK - the novels, no poetry, i think - which were uninspiring in design, but I bought them anyway. I would trawl the second-hand bookshops and occasionally find an older edition of something - Maggie Cassidy, for example, and various versions of OTR - but it wasn't until I visited the States that I got hold of Mexico City Blues, plus Scripture of the Golden Eternity which I'd read about but didn't know existed for real, and a bunch of other Grove Press and City Lights releases.
An older cousin gave me a copy of On the Road for Christmas when I was 14 in the early eighties. I put it aside, not knowing anything about it. Then, having read a couple of Dylan biographies plus No-one Here Gets Out Alive, the Jim Morrison bio, and seeing this book being mentioned as influential to them, I picked it up. I then bought everything Kerouac had written and, in 1993, when I visited San Francisco by chance or happen-chance, I discovered as many old haunts as possible, including the house where the Cassady's had lived, and of course City Lights where I exchanged a couple of words with Lawrence Ferlinghetti - thus making my life complete - and, finally, got hold of a copy of Mexico City Blues, apparently unavailable in the UK at that time.
Great memories there and interesting you share the rock crossover that got you reading Kerouac, much like me…
Great read Simon 😎👍
Many thanks, Malcolm