‘On the Road’ to be printed in full

Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” will be published in its unedited original scroll version by Viking Press, which published the Beat Generation classic in September 1957.

John Sampas, executor of the writer’s literary estate and brother of Stella Sampas, Kerouac’s third wife, said he has signed a contract with Viking, an imprint of Penguin Group USA. He hopes the work will be out by the end of next year, the 50th anniversary of publication. “Incidents in the original were edited out of the published version because of the censorship of the time,” said Sampas, who noted that some of the edited sections refer to drugs and sex.

Sampras said the new version will be in book form, but taken from the original scroll.

Any sections Kerouac had crossed out before turning it in to the publisher will be excluded in the new edition.