Jack Kerouac.
 
San Francisco: City Lights, 1961. Octavo. Perfect bound blue pictorial wraps, very slightly edge-worn with a couple trace waves of crinkling to the lower left corner of the verso, former owner's name written in pen on the inside cover, some soiling to the lower edge of the text block, else clean and crisp. 184 pages. First edition, signed by the publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Near fine.
 
A chronicle of the author's dream life spanning the years 1952 to 1960, the golden period of artistic creation for Kerouac, just after his fateful journey across America by car and just before the ruinous forces of alcoholism began to dull his brain and sap his strength. A wild experimental autobigraphy built in dreamland, this is Kerouac in stride, writing sentences that move like rockets. An important vintage City Lights beat relic rarely found in such fine condition.
 
"Oh! The horrible voyages I’ve had to take across the country and back with gloomy railroads and stations you never dreamed of—one of em a horrible pest of bats and crap holes and incomprehensible parks and rains, I can’t see the end of it on all horizons, this is the book of dreams."