On the Road Scroll on Display

Beat lovers can check out the manuscript of Jack Kerouac's classic novel On the Road at the University of Texas, where it is displayed complete with scribbles and scratch outs. A long glass case allows visitors to view about a third of the book, which was written uninterrupted in a 120-foot scroll. "When Kerouac talked about the scroll, he talked about it mimicking the shape of road," a Texas curator Molly Schwartzburg said. 

"The acts of travel and writing were directly connected for him." The names of traveling companions Neal Cassady and William Burroughs, changed for publication in 1957, remain intact in the original manuscript. "This feels like a missing link that will give visitors a feeling of all the stages of the novel," Schwartzburg told the Daily Texan. (More Jack Kerouac stories.)