The writers Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) and Len Deighton (1929-) were near contemporaries but otherwise would seem to have very little in common. Kerouac was a key figure in the Beat movement, celebrated for his stream of consciousness prose style in “On the Road” (1957) and other novels. Deighton is the bestselling author of well-crafted and carefully researched thrillers including “The IPCRESS File” ((1962) which was adapted into a successful 1965 film starring Michael Caine.
The two very different writers though do have an unlikely connection. Deighton designed the cover for the first UK edition of Kerouac’s “On the Road”, which was published in 1958 a year after the American edition. The now iconic cover is pictured above on the left beside a later Penguin edition. Deighton captures the essence of the novel with an illustration that features its two central characters Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty against a background of road signs and other Americana. It is an image that must have seemed exotic and exciting in 1958 and is still very evocative today.
“On the Road” is a strongly autobiographical novel, narrator Sal Paradise is a self-portrait by Kerouac and Dean Moriarty is based on his friend and travelling companion Neal Cassidy (1926-1968). The worldly Cassidy was a mentor and muse to Kerouac. His rapid fire, free associative manner of conversation, also captured in letters he wrote to Kerouac, inspired the prose style of “On the Road”. Deighton’s cover illustration captures the relationship between the two men both in the novel and real life. In the photograph on the later Penguin edition Cassidy is on the left and Kerouac on the right. You can see the similarities between the figures in the photograph and drawing. The novel had been written in 1951 but had initially failed to find a publisher, due partly to the commercial failure of his first novel “The Town and the City” (1950) which had been published under the name John Kerouac.
Before becoming a writer Deighton was a book and magazine illustrator. He had attended Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. If he had never written a book it is likely he would today be known as an innovative graphic designer. He wrote his first novel “The IPCRESS File” during an extended break in France from his career in illustration and advertising. The book’s success changed his life and he would go on to publish another twenty six novels.
Today both authors are published as Penguin Modern Classics, which means that their works share the distinctive blueish green spines of the imprint, a colour that Deighton will likely be aware is known as Eau de Nil (“water of the Nile”) by artists and designers.