Jack Kerouac's New Typewriter

OK, here's a good little bit. It's from DOOR WIDE OPEN which is a collection of letters between Jack Kerouac & Joyce (Glassman) Johnson. Joyce was Kerouac's girlfriend in 1957-1958, the time ON THE ROAD was finally published and he became famous overnight after the rave review in the New York Times.

This is about 1 month after publication, ON THE ROAD is still on the best seller list. Kerouac is hiding out in Florida.

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[Orlando, Florida]
Nov 1, 1957

Dear Joycey,

Dig my new typewriter! A Royal standard, I'm renting it for $7.73 a month (ugh) but if I do buy it they will deduct that from the $89.50 price...and I think I will buy it cause it's a bitch, with a good firm fast touch, nice small keys, nice quiet sound, direct keys (unlike my lost typewriter that had indirect jointed keys for the silencer equipment and they tend to jam)...on this machine I can swing and swing and swing and swing. I think I can go 95 words a minute on this one after a week of practice, as now... The movers owe me a chick a check for $100 for the lost one...so I'll buy it...and this is such a good typewriter that all I do is yak and yak about nothing interesting.

Now I'll type up all my poems and prose, which has been lying around in my boxes in hand script --

...

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Jack's publisher had various manuscripts of his that they didn't feel were right for publication (Eventually, of course, all those books were published) and they were after him for something new, something to follow up ON THE ROAD. On November 26th Jack sat down with his notes and started typing. Twelve days later he finished his new book, THE DHARMA BUMS.