New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1958. First edition. One of 100 copies of the numbered issue, published simultaneously with the trade issue. A Very Good+ copy. Publisher's brown cloth over cream-and-gray paper boards. Some toning and dampstaining to boards. A bit of foxing to edges of closed text block and to endpapers, otherwise clean throughout. No dust jacket, as issued. A scarce example of the numbered issue.

The Subterraneans was Kerouac's third published novel and the second in the semi-autobiographical series he dubbed the "Duluoz Legend." Set in Greenwich Village, the novel fictionalizes Kerouac's brief affair with Alene Lee, a member of the Beat circle whom Kerouac met while she was typing manuscripts for William S. Burroughs and Adam Ginsberg. As in many of Kerouac's novels, Burroughs and Ginsberg are portrayed pseudonymously in The Subterraneans (as Adam Moorad and Frank Carmody, respectively). Jazz, of which Lee was a fan, also plays a major role in the novel, both in the subject matter and in the "spontaneous prose" style that Kerouac innovated in his previous bestseller On The Road (1957). Very Good + (Item #8060)