This book explores the life and authorial development of Jack Kerouac through previously unpublished papers, letters, and other literary artifacts.
In Running Through Heaven: Visions of Jack Kerouac, Jacob Loewentheil tells the father of the Beat generation’s story through letters, an unpublished manuscript, notable copies of Kerouac’s major works, literary artifacts, and personal items. These physical objects convey quirks, habits, and intimate facets of Kerouac’s character, showing the writer in the making. His early letters, many previously unpublished and from Loewentheil’s own collection, shed light on his emerging and highly influential stream of consciousness style.
Running Through Heaven testifies to the richness of Kerouac’s writing, his lifelong love of education, his complex relationship with religion, the tensions and contradictions in his sexuality, his influence on other writers, his turn toward conservatism, and his pivotal relationship with his mother. To fixate on the continuing popularity of On the Road is to miss Kerouac’s legacy, which extends far beyond literary circles.
In Running Through Heaven: Visions of Jack Kerouac, Jacob Loewentheil tells the father of the Beat generation’s story through letters, an unpublished manuscript, notable copies of Kerouac’s major works, literary artifacts, and personal items. These physical objects convey quirks, habits, and intimate facets of Kerouac’s character, showing the writer in the making. His early letters, many previously unpublished and from Loewentheil’s own collection, shed light on his emerging and highly influential stream of consciousness style.
Running Through Heaven testifies to the richness of Kerouac’s writing, his lifelong love of education, his complex relationship with religion, the tensions and contradictions in his sexuality, his influence on other writers, his turn toward conservatism, and his pivotal relationship with his mother. To fixate on the continuing popularity of On the Road is to miss Kerouac’s legacy, which extends far beyond literary circles.
272 pages | 67 color plates | 6 x 9 | © 2026
Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature
Table of Contents
Prologue
1. Book and Newspaper Production in the First Century of the Industrial Revolution
2. Louis-Nicholas Robert and the Development of the Papermaking Machine
3. Friedrich Koenig Invents the Steam-Powered Printing Machine
4. Railroads, Power Looms and Bibles: Innovation versus Tradition
5. Henry Brougham, Charles Knight and the Society for the DiOusion of Useful Knowledge Use Printing Machines to Reach Large Audiences
6. Image Reproduction Methods Appropriate for Rotary Printing Machines: Wood Engraving, Steel Engraving, Electrotyping, Lithography
7. Developments in Mechanized Book and Newspaper Production, 1800–1850
8. Charles Dickens and his Imitators Exploit the New Technologies with Great Success
9. Development of Mechanized Printing in America: Daniel Treadwell, The American Bible Society, Isaac Adams, the Harper Brothers
10. The Role of Women in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Book Production: Emily Faithfull
11. Mechanizing Typesetting and Type Distribution from William Church to Young and Delcambre’s Pianotyp to Linotype and Monotype
12. William Pickering and Archibald Leighton Begin the Mechanization of Bookbinding
13. Mechanization of Book Production in the United States and Europe, 1851 – 1904:
The Great Exhibition, George Baxter, Manuals & Promotional Books on Mechanized Printing, The Caxton Celebration & Bible.
14. Mechanization of Newspaper Production in the United States and Europe, 1826-1900: The Hoe Family & Hippolyte Marinoni
15. William Morris, Theodore Low De Vinne, and Robert Hoe III Reflect upon nineteenth Century Developments in Book Production
1. Book and Newspaper Production in the First Century of the Industrial Revolution
2. Louis-Nicholas Robert and the Development of the Papermaking Machine
3. Friedrich Koenig Invents the Steam-Powered Printing Machine
4. Railroads, Power Looms and Bibles: Innovation versus Tradition
5. Henry Brougham, Charles Knight and the Society for the DiOusion of Useful Knowledge Use Printing Machines to Reach Large Audiences
6. Image Reproduction Methods Appropriate for Rotary Printing Machines: Wood Engraving, Steel Engraving, Electrotyping, Lithography
7. Developments in Mechanized Book and Newspaper Production, 1800–1850
8. Charles Dickens and his Imitators Exploit the New Technologies with Great Success
9. Development of Mechanized Printing in America: Daniel Treadwell, The American Bible Society, Isaac Adams, the Harper Brothers
10. The Role of Women in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Book Production: Emily Faithfull
11. Mechanizing Typesetting and Type Distribution from William Church to Young and Delcambre’s Pianotyp to Linotype and Monotype
12. William Pickering and Archibald Leighton Begin the Mechanization of Bookbinding
13. Mechanization of Book Production in the United States and Europe, 1851 – 1904:
The Great Exhibition, George Baxter, Manuals & Promotional Books on Mechanized Printing, The Caxton Celebration & Bible.
14. Mechanization of Newspaper Production in the United States and Europe, 1826-1900: The Hoe Family & Hippolyte Marinoni
15. William Morris, Theodore Low De Vinne, and Robert Hoe III Reflect upon nineteenth Century Developments in Book Production