Works by
Neal Cassady
(Writer)
[February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968]

Biography/Memoirs

• Neal Cassady: Collected Letters, 1944-1967  (2004)
  Neal Cassady is best remembered today as Jack Kerouac’s muse and the basis for the character “Dean Moriarty” in Kerouac’s classic On the Road, and as one of Ken Kesey’s merriest of Merry Pranksters, the driver of the psychedelic bus “Further,” immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This collection brings together more than two hundred letters to Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac, John Clellon Holmes, and other Beat generation luminaries, as well as correspondence between Neal and his wife, Carolyn. These amazing letters cover Cassady’s life between the ages of 18 and 41 and finish just months before his death in February 1968. Brilliantly edited by Dave Moore, this unique collection presents the “Soul of the Beat Generation” in his own words—sometimes touching and tender, sometimes bawdy and hilarious. Here is the real Neal Cassady—raw and uncut.

• Grace Beats Karma: Letters from Prison 1958-60 (1993)

• As Ever: The Collected Correspondance of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady (1977), Barry Gifford, ed.

• Pull My Daisy (1951)
  Poem written with Jack Kerouac.

Fiction

• The First Third (1971)
  Immortalized as Dean Moriarty by Jack Kerouac in his epic novel, On the Road, Neal Cassady was infamous for his unstoppable energy and his overwhelming charm, his savvy hustle and his devil-may-care attitude. A treasured friend and traveling companion of Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Ken Kesey, to name just some of his cohorts on the beatnik path, Cassady lived life to the fullest, ready for inspiration at any turn.
  
  Before he died in Mexico in 1968, just four days shy of his forty-second birthday, Cassady had written the jacket blurb for this book: "Seldom has there been a story of a man so balled up. No doubt many readers will not believe the veracity of the author, but I assure these doubting Thomases that every incident, as such, is true."
  
  As Ferlingetti writes in his editor's note, Cassady was "an early prototype of the urban cowboy who a hundred years ago might have been an outlaw on the range." Here are his autobiographical writings, the rambling American saga of a truly free individual.

Movies

• Neal Cassady (2008) played by Tate Donovan

• The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997) played by Thomas Jane

• What Happened to Kerouac (1986)

• Heart Beat (1980) played by Nick Nolte

See also:

• Beatific Souls: Jack Kerouac's On the Road (2008) by Isaac Gewirtz
  Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road was a touchstone for a generation and the centrepiece of the Beat movement in literature and art. This new book examines Kerouac's life and career, and accompanies a major exhibition at The New York Public Library to celebrate the 50th anniversary of On the Road's publication in 1957. Kerouac's achievement as both a literary and cultural figure is traced, including his innovations in narrative techniques and in character development. His counterculture vision is explored, showing his image as a seer and sage who wanted to save America from its obsession with consumerism, the inhibition of sexuality and other conventional bourgeois pieties. The author also explores Kerouac's relationships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs  and other Beats, as well as the Beat movement in general.

• The Holy Goof: A Biography of Neal Cassady (2004) by William Plummer

• Off the Road: My Years With Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg (1990) by Carolyn Cassady

• Neal Cassady: The Fast Life of a Beat Hero (2006) by David Sandison and Graham Vickers
  This fascinating and in-depth biography of Neal Cassady takes a look at the man who achieved immortality as Dean Moriarty, the central character in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. A charismatic, funny, articulate, and formidably intelligent man, Cassady was also a compulsive womanizer who lived life on the edge. His naturalistic, conversational writing style inspired Kerouac, who lifted a number of passages verbatim and uncredited from Cassady’s letters for significant episodes in On the Road. Drawing on a wealth of new research and with full cooperation from central figures in his life—including Carolyn Cassady and Ken Kesey — this account captures Cassady’s unique blend of inspired lunacy and deep spirituality.

• Neal Cassady, Volume Two, 1941-1946 (1998) by Tom Christopher

• Neal Cassady, Volume One, 1926 - 1940 (1995) by Tom Christopher

• Neal in San Quentin (1989) by Carolyn Cassady

• The Holy Goof: A Biography of Neal Cassady (1981) by William Plummer
  Criminal ... Saint ... Lunatic ... Genius ... Muse .... Once described by Jack Kerouac as "more like Dostoevsky than anyone I know," Neal Cassady lived what others could only write about. Serving as the model for Kerouac's frenetic hero, the hip, Noble Savage Dean Moriarty in On the Road, and "N.C., the secret hero" of Allen Ginsberg's provocative poem "Howl," Cassady was a genius of life lived on the edge of the abyss. Now, William Plummer strips away the mystery surrounding this enigmatic figure. Plummer brings Cassady to life: his coming of age in a Denver flophouse, his hustling across America, the car thefts that landed him in jail, his meeting with Kerouac and their mad-cap cross-country adventures, his experiments with sex and drugs, his second marriage to Carolyn Cassady, his teaming with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters on an epochal acid trip, and finally his bizarre death. Black-and-white photographs add to this engrossing biography of an outrageous but fascinating life.

• Heart Beat: My Life With Jack and Neal (1976) by Carolyn Cassady

• Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady: First Night of the Tapes by Jack Kerouac (1969)