Auction of Beats writer Neal Cassady’s famed letter halted

The auction of a long-lost letter from Beat prototype and railroad man Neal Cassady to his buddy writer Jack Kerouac has been canceled due to a three-way fight over its ownership.

Under a threat of legal action by Kerouac’s estate, an attorney representing the auction house Profiles in History has sent notice that it intends to file an interpleader action, in which a court settles a dispute over property.

“We’ve made it clear that the letter belongs to the estate of Jack Kerouac and should be returned,” said Nick Mitrokostas, a Boston attorney who is handling litigation of the matter for John Sampas, literary executor for the Kerouac estate. Mitrokostas confirmed receipt of the interpleader notice.

Sabrina Propper, a representative of the auction house in Calabasas (Los Angeles County), would say only that the auction had been “canceled indefinitely,” without elaborating.

To complicate the matter, the estate of Neal Cassady has also laid claim to the “Joan Anderson Letter,” as the document is known, on grounds that it is not a personal letter but a manuscript meant for publication, as were many other “letters” written by Cassady. The argument is that the letter belongs to the Cassady estate, as do the words on the letter, protected by copyright law.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Jami Cassady said no member of her family has been allowed to see the document written by her father, or claim its words for publication. The Kerouac and Cassady estates are not working together and have not contacted each other regarding the dispute.

Crucial document

The letter, a crucial document in the literary history of the Beats, was written on Dec. 17, 1950, in Cassady’s Russian Hill home and mailed to Kerouac in New York.

Kerouac later lent it to Allen Ginsberg in hopes of finding a publisher. Ginsberg passed it along, and it disappeared for 60 years until it was found in the effects of the late San Francisco record producer Jack Spinosa, by his daughter Jean Spinosa.

As reported by The Chronicle, Jean Spinosa brought the letter to the Beat Museum in North Beach for a one-day sighting, in order to announce that it would be auctioned in Southern California on Dec. 17, its 64th anniversary.

The Anderson letter, which was typed single-space on both sides of nine sheets of paper, is of tremendous literary importance because it was the inspiration for the jazzy, free-form style that Kerouac put to great success in “On the Road,” the bible of the Beats.

The original scroll for “On the Road” sold for $2.4 million in 2001, and there is speculation that the Anderson letter could easily top that on the open market.

'Sad day’

“The feeling in the Beat community seems to be unanimous that it’s a sad day when, for monetary purposes only, a seller and an auction house are denying the world access to the content of a literary treasure,” said Jerry Cimino, owner of the Beat Museum. “People think Jack and Neal, best of friends, would be spinning in their graves over this.”

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@samwhitiingsf