Longest paragraph in print goes on display

Author : Rob Ashton

Posted : 03 / 12 / 08

If you’re struggling to read the latest lengthy management report, it could be worse. Take a look at this. It’s the original manuscript scroll for Jack Kerouac’s seminal novel, On the Road, which goes on display in Europe for the first time at Birmingham’s Barber Institute today.

Kerouac wrote the novel on sheets of tracing paper and taped them together to form a scroll 120 feet long, in what must be the longest single paragraph in print. (Even the human genome sequence report is broken up into sections on individual chromosomes, although some would argue it’s not such a good read.)

But that didn’t stop it inspiring an entire generation to drop out of society and seek an alternative to the nine to five (a burden that the author found too much to bear: he deliberately drank himself to death according to former friends).

He reportedly completed it after 20 days of continuous typing, fuelled by nothing stronger than coffee.

We wouldn’t really recommend Kerouac’s somewhat eccentric approach as an example of best practice, so don’t try this at home (or the office). For advice on how to write an effective report, better to read ten tips for writing high-impact documents.