Item #157 in my Kerouac bookshelf curation project is Rod Anstee's Jack Kerouac: The Bootleg Era: An Annotated List dated June, 1993. It is 23 pages of standard 8-1/2" x 11" paper held together in a plastic protective binder cover and is in very good condition. The provenance is lost in memory -- I seem to remember someone sending it to me years ago; if that was you, drop me a note and refresh my memory. It may have been Rod himself, who in the introduction explains that this "first draft version" is being "printed and distributed to a small number of friends and Kerouac aficionados in the hope that they will seize the opportunity to assist in making this project as complete and accurate as possible." I've never met Rod, but he is a Kerouac scholar and collector from Canada; you can listen to an interview with him here.
Page 2 is a title page showing by hand numbering that this is #7 of 10 and is signed by Rod Anstee. As the title indicates, this is an annotated bibliography of 56 items identified as "bootlegs." There is a 2-page introduction and a 1-page afterword.
In this bibliography are bootleg or pirated -- or reckoned as such by many booksellers even if they might not be - items (booklets, books, and broadsides) such as A Last Haiku, Old Angel Midnight, Dr. Sax, Home at Christmas, Junk, On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and the list goes on. Each item is coded to Ann Charters' bibliography if it appears there.
This is an important Kerouac resource and it's likely collectible as it is signed and hand-numbered by the author. It appears that Water Row Press published this in 1994 with 64 entries and 14 illustrations; it's still available on-line (although the Amazon link below is fruitless as it is currently unavailable). Try AbeBooks.com.
This definitely deserves a spot on any thorough Kerouac bookshelf.
Below is a picture of Shelf #5 (last one!) of my Kerouac bookshelf showing the placement of this item (11th from the top of the pile) on the day I started curating my collection. Next up: Trois Couleurs Special Edition #8 published by MK2 Media: On the Road Based on Jack Kerouac - The Man - The Book - The Film - The Odyssey of a Myth.
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| Shelf #5 of my Kerouac bookshelf |
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