• Typescript and manuscript drafts of On the Road, a largely autobiographical work that was written as a stream of consciousness creation—based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America.
  

• Unpublished Kerouac materials (ooooh, the chance to see what few have seen before)

• Information on his early literary influences, such as William Blake, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, and Thomas Wolfe, illustrated by the Berg's rare editions and manuscripts, as well as by books from Kerouac's library

• Early drafts or rare editions of most of Kerouac's principal novels, such as The Town and the City (1950), On the Road (1957), Maggie Cassidy (1959), and Big Sur (1962), as well as a representative sampling of his unpublished poetry

• His journals, diaries, and correspondence that show his constant goal of expressing himself creatively

• His detailed fantasy baseball and horse racing materials, which he created as a boy and played with throughout his life

• Photographs of Kerouac, his family and friends, crutches he used following a football injury while playing for Columbia University

• Items memorably described in his writings, such as his harmonicas, his Buddhist bells, and his railroad track lantern.

• And his spirituality, which drew from both Buddhism and Roman Catholicism.
  

The Era in Which He Lived

• The richness of the Beat movement will be documented in a major section that will display a few selections from the Berg Collection's newly acquired William S. Burroughs Archive, as well as manuscripts, rare publications, and drawings by and photographs of Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other Beat notables.
  

• A few examples of the media-driven "Beatnik" phenomenon, through the lurid cover art of pulp paperbacks.