CASSADY, Neal.

£125,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Collection of letters, signed, to Justin Brierly. A substantial archive of autograph and typescript letters from a teenage Neal Cassady, later a central figure of the Beat generation and the model for Dean Moriarty in On the Road. All are addressed to Cassady's friend and mentor, Justin Brierly, with a significant proportion written during Cassady's incarceration at the Colorado State Reformatory. These are the earliest surviving letters by Cassady currently known; five remain unpublished, and the group likely represents the largest collection of Cassady correspondence in private hands.Kerouac opens On the Road by invoking Dean Moriarty's origins as a "jailkid," recalling letters from reform school in which the young Cassady "naively and sweetly" begged to be taught Nietzsche and the life of the mind (Kerouac, p. 1). That formative moment is documented here. By turns vulnerable, defiant, contrite, grateful, and sharply funny, the letters illuminate a decisive period in Cassady's youth and the formative role played by Brierly.Brierly was a prominent figure in Denver cultural life, known for his patronage of the arts and for identifying and guiding gifted but wayward young men toward education and opportunity. He met Cassady in 1941, when Cassady was 15 and living with Brierly's uncle, and soon became deeply involved in his intellectual and practical development, helping him enter high school, directing his reading, and finding him work. Another Brierly protégé, Hal Chase ("Cha

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