On the Road Manuscript Photography Controversy

On the Road Manuscript, #3 Originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

"Art is the highest task and the proper metaphysical activity of this life."--Nietzsche

I went to high school and did my undergraduate work near Indianapolis, so any literary news with an Indianapolis connection catches my eye. Ron Irsay, the owner of the Colts, purchased the original scroll manuscript of On The Road several years ago, and sent the manuscript itself on the road, making a multi-city tour over the last couple of years.

According the Literary Traveller, the Kerouac estate first passed to Kerouac's mother; upon her death in 1973, the estate went not to Jan Kerouac, Jack's daughter, but to the Sampas family, related to Jack's last wife. The issue of a forged will came up and was in litigation, apparently, when Jan died in 1996. The wrangling went on after her death, which has prompted the sale of the manuscript to pay the legal debts, apparently. And here's an interesting website exploring provenance.

Now, apparently, it is on display a the San Francisco public library until mid-March. Click here to see a photo of Carolyn Cassiday & daughter Jami at the exhibit.

However, Thomas Hawk, photographer and fellow blogger, was prevented from photographing the manuscript by the tour organizer, who cited copyright violation as the reason Hawk could not snap digital photos. (Also, see his entry on 30 boxes, a fascinating calendar tool in development). After he wrote a letter about the issue, the tour organizer responded here. In some of the discussions at the end of his post, some exceptionally interesting comments were made about Kerouac's last wife and the owners of the book's copyright. In fact, the copyright issues raised are quite thorny and interesting to me--gotta find out more about them.