Who is Neal Cassady from The Portable Beat Reader and what is their importance? The_Portable_Beat_Reader English & Literature Neal Cassady | The Portable Beat Reader

Neal Cassady is the most important of all the Beats because he is the inspiration for so many of the famous Beat works of literature. Most obviously, Cassady is the basis for Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," but Casady appears in numerous other works. In "Howl," Allen Ginsberg refers to him as the "secret hero" of the poem, and Cassady is the major character in the excerpt from John Clellon Holmes' "Go." Although Cassady never finishes a book, he writes part of his autobiography and numerous letters. Kerouac credits the so-called "Joan Anderson" letter from Cassady for teaching him the key elements of spontaneous prose.