Kerouac: The Letters

For Kerouac, correspondence was the principal means of maintaining his relationships with both his friends and literary connections. As he dove into his exploration of Buddhism, Kerouac relied on correspondence to guide his spiritual journey. In particular, his correspondence to Ginsberg and Snyder fluctuated between 1954 and 1963. His letters to Ginsberg declined as he sought more of a spiritual connection that a correspondence Snyder could better facilitate. By the end of 1963, correspondence to Ginsberg and Snyder diminished drastically.

Part of the reason for the decline in letters to both Ginsberg and Snyder was a shift in correspondence to other writers and professional contacts. In particular, Kerouac began to write to his editor, Don Allen and literary agent Sterling Lord. While Philip Whalen was a mutual friend of both Ginsberg and Snyder, Kerouac wrote to Whalen as his interest in Eastern spirituality began to fade.

The data used in these visualizations rely on the published collection of letters by Ann Charter, Bill Morgan, and David Stanford. Their published material was cross-referenced with one another, which helped to fill gaps in correspondence and present a more continuous flow in letters between Kerouac and others. In particular, there were instances in letters between Kerouac and Ginsberg that appeared in Morgan and Stanford’s work, while not in Charter’s collections. It is worth noting that the correspondence between Kerouac and Ginsberg had existed prior to 1954, dating as far back as 1944 when they met at Columbia University. However, for the purposes this project, the correspondence featured begins in 1954, when they engage in a mutual exploration of Eastern religion and spirituality. Gaps in correspondence to both Ginsberg and Snyder have to be attributed to the fact that both men traveled extensively to East Asia during this period. Snyder continued his studies in Kyoto, Japan, while Ginsberg ventured to India.