Which Beat writer appeared as Old Bull Lee in Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road?

William S. Burroughs appeared as Old Bull Lee in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

Kerouac used fictional names for many real people in the novel. Old Bull Lee is the fictional counterpart of William S. Burroughs, while Dean Moriarty is based largely on Neal Cassady and Carlo Marx is based on Allen Ginsberg.

Old Bull Lee appears during the novel’s Mexico section, where Sal Paradise and Dean visit him. The character reflects Burroughs’s reputation as an older, eccentric, intellectually forceful figure within the writers’ circle. Kerouac’s portrayal is fictionalized, so the character should not be treated as a complete biography of Burroughs.

On the Road was published in 1957 and transformed the public image of the Beat Generation. Its characters blend autobiography and invention, which is why identifying the real-life models is a frequent part of reading the novel’s cultural history.