As we wait in trepidation for the film version of On the Road and gently bemoan the news that e-books now outsell paper books, we’ve been thinking about all the many iterations of cover art that have graced Kerouac’s world-changing novel, from the impressionistic to the flat out ugly, from the sexed-up to the somewhat insensitive (a whiskey bottle for someone who died of cirrhosis? Really, now). We’ve already given you a roundup of vintage Lolita covers from home and abroad, so we thought it might be nice to take a look at the vintage covers of On the Road, a book that is — design-wise at least — diametrically opposed to Nabokov’s classic. Think men, cars and broken down diner images, as opposed to the flowers and girlish knees of the Lolita art. Click through to see our gallery of vintage American and foreign covers, and don’t forget to check out Kerouac’s own idea for what his book cover should look like — it seems pretty thematially on par with the rest.
First edition, Viking 1957
Andre Deutsch (UK), 1958
Penguin, 1972
Argentina, 1959
Signet, 1958
Russia, 2001
Czechoslovakia, 1980
The Netherlands, 1988
East Germany, 1978
Hungary, 1983
Signet, 1968
Penguin UK, 1980
Czech Republic, 1997
Penguin UK, 1989
Russia, 1995
Spain, 1983
Yugoslavia, 1988
Portugal, 1960
Poland, 1993
Penguin, 1990
Spain, 1989
Sweden, 1965
Sweden, 1976
China, 2001
France, 1987
Germany, 1998
Greece, 1981
Portugal, 1998
Japan, 1983
Holland, 1978