In the spring of 1951, the muse landed so hard in the caffeinated mind of Jack Kerouac that within three weeks he had hurried out a full-length, single-spaced manuscript — a draft for “On the Road” that he taped together into a scroll some 120 feet long.
Published six years later to instant acclaim and notoriety, “On the Road” may not be the Great American Novel, but Kerouac's epiphany surely stands as the Great American Manuscript.
