William S. Burroughs's Books

The Letters of William S. Burroughs

Volume I: 1945-1959

By: William S. Burroughs

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The Letters of William S. Burroughs

Volume I: 1945-1959

By: William S. Burroughs

These funny, filthy, and terrifically smart letters reveal him in a way that no biographer can." -- New York Newsday Guru of the Beat generation, éminence grise of the international avant-garde, dark prophet, and blackest of satirists, William S. Burroughs has had a range of influence rivaled by few living writers. This volume of his correspondence from 1945 to 1959 vividly documents the personal and cultural history through which Burroughs developed, revealing clues to illuminate his life and keys to open up his texts. More than that, it shows how letter-writing was itself integral to his life and to his fiction. Beginning as surprisingly formal notes from the road to his friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the letters deepen in substance and style. Then, in Tangier, comes a dramatic shift in voice and vision and the explosive, distinctive letters that will become Naked Lunch. Letters were lifelines for Burroughs, the outcast; and works-in-progress for Burroughs, the writer; and, they track his turbulent journey across two decades and three continents. To read them as they were written is to experience a unique merging of life and letters, the extraordinary story of Williams S. Burroughs homme de lettres. "Unrelenting impact." -- Los Angeles Reader

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Page Count

513

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0140094520

ISBN 13

9780140094527

Last Words

The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs

By: William S. Burroughs

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Last Words

The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs

By: William S. Burroughs

Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs is the most intimate book ever written by William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and one of the most celebrated literary outlaws of our time. Laid out as diary entries of the last nine months of Burroughs's life, Last Words spans the realms of cultural criticism, personal memoir, and fiction. Classic Burroughs concerns -- literature, U.S. drug policy, the state of humanity, his love for his cats -- permeate the book. Most significantly, Last Words contains some of the most personal work Burroughs has ever written, a final reckoning with his life and regrets, and his reflections on the deaths of his friends Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary. It is a poignant portrait of the man, his life, and his creative process -- one that never quit, not even in the shadow of death.

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Page Count

308

Publisher

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

080219723X

ISBN 13

9780802197238

Rub Out the Words

The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1959-1974

By: William S. Burroughs

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Rub Out the Words

The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1959-1974

By: William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs was one of the twentieth century’s most iconoclastic literary and artistic figures, an inimitable writer whose groundbreaking work in novels such as Junky and Naked Lunch forever altered the shape of American culture. Now, in this long anticipated collection, editor Bill Morgan takes readers through Burroughs’ correspondence from the early sixties through the mid-seventies, in more than three hundred letters that document Burroughs’ steady drift away from the Beat circle and that witness an era in which he became the center of a new coterie of creative people who would establish his reputation as an influential artistic and cultural leader beyond the literary world, toward multimedia. Written to recipients such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, and Burroughs’ son, Billy Burroughs Jr., these letters shed new light on the writer’s controversial artistic process and literary experimentation, as well as his complex personal life. Here are letters to new friends in North Africa and Eur-ope—partners in Burroughs’ expatriate life—including Paul Bowles, Ian Sommerville, Michael Portman, Alex Trocchi, and the surrealist artist Brion Gysin, who became a close confidant and whose “cut-up method” would deeply influence Burroughs’ writing. An intimate glimpse into the private life of an often misunderstood artist, Rub Out the Words is also an unforgettable portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most uncompromising literary personalities.

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Page Count

817

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

006209677X

ISBN 13

9780062096777

Junky

The Definitive Text of "Junk"

By: William S. Burroughs

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Junky

The Definitive Text of "Junk"

By: William S. Burroughs

Imprint date taken from page 4 of cover.

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241

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Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802120423

ISBN 13

9780802120427

Cursed from Birth

The Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs, Jr.

By: William S. Burroughs. Jr.

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Cursed from Birth

The Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs, Jr.

By: William S. Burroughs. Jr.

Being the son of counter-culture author William S. Burroughs is bound to be a trial. After all, the man who frequented lesbian dives and had a fascination with firearms couldn't possibly make that great of a father. Perhaps inevitably, William Jr. (called Billy) referred to himself as "cursed from birth" and in the book of the same name editor David Ohle collects parts of Billy's third and unfinished novel Prakriti Junction, his last journals and poems, and correspondence and conversations to recreate this tortured life. Endowed with the sufferings — but not the patience — of Job, Billy's life was often characterized by tragedy and frustration, although there were also pockets of success and levity. More than just the memoir of a casualty of the Beat Generation, Cursed From Birth provides rare insight in Billy's father, as well as his scene, friends, and times. It also provides an all-too-familiar story of familial difficulties that anyone with difficult parents can understand and appreciate.

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225

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1933368381

ISBN 13

9781933368382

Cursed from Birth

The Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs, Jr.

By: William S. Burroughs,David Ohle

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Cursed from Birth

The Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs, Jr.

By: William S. Burroughs,David Ohle

Born in 1947 to the writer William S. Burroughs and his common-law wife Joan Vollmer, William S. Burroughs, Jr. (known as Billy Jr.) would later describe himself to his father as "your cursed-from-birth son". Cursed from Birth is testimony to the difficulty of living up to a famous father, and a lucid; shattering depiction of a life going down the tubes. Raised by his paternal grandparents in Palm Beach after his mother was killed by his father in a shooting accident, Billy saw his father become suddenly famous for Naked Lunch just as he became a teenager. Billy Jr.'s short life was defined by creating trouble to catch the attention of his father, mourning the death of his mother, descent into alcoholism and drug addiction, and reckoning with it all by beginning his own literary endeavors. Compiled by writer David Ohle from Burroughs Jr.'s third and unfinished novel Prakriti Junction, his last journals and poems, and correspondence and conversations with those who knew Billy, Cursed from Birth is faithful to Billy's own intentions for a last artistic effort. With the sufferings -- but not the patience -- of Job, Billy Burroughs's li

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Page Count

240

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802137792

ISBN 13

9780802137791

Nova Express

By: William S. Burroughs

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Nova Express

By: William S. Burroughs

The Soft Machine introduced us to the conditions of a universe where endemic lusts of the mind and body pray upon men, hook them, and turn them into beasts. Nova Express takes William S. Burroughs’s nightmarish futuristic tale one step further. The diabolical Nova Criminals—Sammy The Butcher, Green Tony, Iron Claws, The Brown Artist, Jacky Blue Note, Izzy The Push, to name only a few—have gained control and plan on wreaking untold destruction. It’s up to Inspector Lee of the Nova Police to attack and dismantle the word and imagery machine of these “control addicts” before it’s too late. This surrealist novel is part sci-fi, part Swiftian parody, and always pure Burroughs.

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194

Publisher

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802197221

ISBN 13

9780802197221

The Soft Machine

By: William S. Burroughs

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The Soft Machine

By: William S. Burroughs

In Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs revealed his genius. In The Soft Machine he begins an adventure that will take us even further into the dark recesses of his imagination, a region where nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Continuing his ferocious verbal assault on hatred, hype, poverty, war, bureaucracy, and addiction in all its forms, Burroughs gives us a surreal space odyssey through the wounded galaxies in a book only he could create.

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Page Count

202

Publisher

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802197213

ISBN 13

9780802197214

The Place of Dead Roads

By: William S. Burroughs

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The Place of Dead Roads

By: William S. Burroughs

This surreal fable, set in America's Old West, features a cast of notorious characters: The Crying Gun, who breaks into tears at the sight of his opponent; The Priest, who goes into gunfights giving his adversaries the last rites; and The Nihilistic Kid himself, Kim Carson, a homosexual gunslinger who, with a succession of beautiful sidekicks, sets out to challenge the morality of small-town America and fight for intergalactic freedom. Fantastical and humorous, The Place of Dead Roads continues William Burroughs' exploration of society's controlling forces - the State, the Church, women, literature, drugs - with a style that is utterly unique in twentieth-century literature.

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Page Count

299

Publisher

Penguin UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

0141976063

ISBN 13

9780141976068

The Letters of William S. Burroughs

Volume I: 1945-1959

By: William S. Burroughs

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The Letters of William S. Burroughs

Volume I: 1945-1959

By: William S. Burroughs

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513

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Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0140094520

ISBN 13

9780140094527

Conversations with William S. Burroughs

By: William S. Burroughs

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Conversations with William S. Burroughs

By: William S. Burroughs

Although a rather shy, private man, William Burroughs gave a good many interviews during his lifetime, some in prominent publications, others in obscure forums. The interviews collected here provide an aperture into the philosophies, methods, and quirks of a man who wrote Queer, Junky, Naked Lunch, Nova Express, Cities of the Red Night, My Education, and many other works. When he died in 1997, Burroughs was likely one of the most widely recognizable figures in contemporary American literature. His image circulated on album jackets, in Nike commercials, and in films, as though proving his notion that pictures and words are viruses, invading any receptive host, taking hold, and replicating themselves. Not surprisingly, the topics Burroughs touches upon are wide-ranging: his relationships to the Beats, legends surrounding his personal life, drugs, gay liberation, collaboration, the cut-up technique, science fiction, politics, conspiracy theory, censorship, cats, guns, David Cronenberg's movie adaptation of Naked Lunch, shotgun art, dreams, and life in Lawrence, Kansas, where he spent his last years. From these interviews emerges a full, undiluted portait of a writer who is difficult to capture in biography. Speaking of the Paris Review interview Alfred Kazin calls Burroughs "an engineer of the pen, a calmly interested specialist of the new processes. When Burroughs makes philosophic and scientific claims for his disorderly collections of data, we happily recognize under the externally calm surface of the interview, the kind of inner frenzy that is his genius--and which, in all of us, his books make an appeal." Kazin's view applies as well for the other interviews in this collection. Allen Hibbard is an associate professor of English and the director of graduate studies at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of Paul Bowles: A Study of the Short Fiction and of many articles.

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Page Count

268

Publisher

Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published Date

ISBN 10

1578061830

ISBN 13

9781578061839

The Finger

By: William S. Burroughs

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The Finger

By: William S. Burroughs

He felt a sudden deep pity for the finger joint that lay there on the dresser, a few drops of blood gathering around the white bone.' A deliberately severed finger, a junky's Christmas miracle and a Tangier con-artist, among others, feature in these hallucinogenic sketches and stories from the infamous Beat legend. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

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Penguin UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

0241339081

ISBN 13

9780241339084

Don't Hide the Madness

William S. Burroughs in Conversation with Allen Ginsberg

By: William S. Burroughs,Allen Ginsberg

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Don't Hide the Madness

William S. Burroughs in Conversation with Allen Ginsberg

By: William S. Burroughs,Allen Ginsberg

An intense, compelling conversation between legendary Beat icons William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, featuring photos by Ginsberg, and details of Burroughs' shamanic exorcism of the demon that led him to shoot his wife and drove his work as a writer.

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Page Count

364

Publisher

Mitten Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1941110703

ISBN 13

9781941110706

My Education

A Book of Dreams

By: William S. Burroughs

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My Education

A Book of Dreams

By: William S. Burroughs

My Education is William S. Burroughs's final collection, first published two years before his death in 1997. It is a book of dreams, written over several decades and as personal and close to a memoir as we will see. The dreams cover themes from the mundane and ordinary -- conversations with his friends Allen Ginsberg or Ian Sommerville, feeding his cats, procuring drugs or sex -- to the erotic, bizarre, and visionary. Always a rich source of imagery in Burroughs's own fiction, in this book, dreams become a direct and powerful force in themselves. "Mr. Burroughs has lost none of his irreverence or wit, but in recent years he has acquired an elegant, elegiac tone." – The New York Times

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Page Count

217

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0140094547

ISBN 13

9780140094541

Ports of Entry

William S. Burroughs and the Arts

By: Robert A. Sobieszek,Los Angeles County Museum of Art,William S. Burroughs

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Ports of Entry

William S. Burroughs and the Arts

By: Robert A. Sobieszek,Los Angeles County Museum of Art,William S. Burroughs

Robert Sobieszek analyses William S. Burroughs contribution to the world of the visual arts, wherein his visions, conjured in his writings of a fragmented world, are parallelled in cut-up and fold-in collages.

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Page Count

192

Publisher

Small PressDistribution

Published Date

ISBN 10

0500974357

ISBN 13

9780500974353

Interzone

By: William S. Burroughs

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Interzone

By: William S. Burroughs

In 1954 William Burroughs settled in Tangiers, finding a sanctuary of sorts in its shadowy streets, blind alleys, and lowlife decadence. It was this city that served as a catalyst for Burroughs as a writer, the backdrop for one of the most radical transformations of style in literary history. Burroughs's life during this period is limned in a startling collection of short stories, autobiographical sketches, letters, and diary entries, all of which showcase his trademark mordant humor, while delineating the addictions to drugs and sex that are the central metaphors of his work. But it is the extraordinary "WORD," a long, sexually wild and deliberately offensive tirade, that blends confession, routine, and fantasy and marks the true turning point of Burroughs as a writer-the breakthrough of his own characteristic voice that will find its full realization in Naked Lunch. James Grauerholz's incisive introduction sets the scene for this series of pieces, guiding the reader through Burroughs's literary evolution from the precise, laconic, and deadpan writer of Junky and Queer to the radical, uncompromising seer of Naked Lunch. Interzone is an indispensable addition to the canon of his works.

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Page Count

217

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0140094512

ISBN 13

9780140094510

The Cat Inside

By: William S. Burroughs

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The Cat Inside

By: William S. Burroughs

Best known for the wild, phantasmagoric satire of works like Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs reveals another, gentler side in The Cat Inside. Originally published as a limited-edition volume, this moving and witty discourse on cats combines deadpan routines and dream passages with a heartwarming account of Burroughs's unexpected friendships with the many cats he has known. It is also a meditation on the long, mysterious relationship between cats and their human hosts, which Burroughs traces back to the Egyptian cult of the "animal other." With its street sense and whiplash prose, The Cat Inside is a genuine revelation for Burroughs fans and cat lovers alike.

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Page Count

113

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0142000256

ISBN 13

9780142000250

With William Burroughs

By: William S. Burroughs,Victor Bockris

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With William Burroughs

By: William S. Burroughs,Victor Bockris

William Burroughs, the eccentric, brilliant artist who burned a bridge with logic and wrote the classic "Naked Lunch", continues to fascinate readers. Now the artist's long-time friend, writer Victor Bockris, records for all objective time the choice private and public, hallucinatory and prescient, utterances of Burroughs and his famous circle. 60 photos.

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Page Count

294

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0312147678

ISBN 13

9780312147679

Book's by William S. Burroughs

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