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SECTION A:
This index includes books, pamphlets, and broadsides (excluding foreign language translations, interviews and some miscellaneous prose) from 1957 to 1973: roughly the period of time covered by the Maynard and Miles Bibliography (ref. M&M).
1. Lee, William. JUNKIE
a. First edition:
New York: Ace Books Inc., 1953
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 4.25” x 6.5”, 320 pages, bound back to back with Maurice Helbrant’s Narcotic Agent. Publisher’s note by Carl Solomon (not credited).
(M&M A1a) *
William Burroughs’ first book, written under the pseudonym ‘William Lee’ (his mother’s maiden name).
According to Beatbooks catalog #92: Ace Books was owned by Carl Solomon’s uncle, A.A. Wyn, a connection made by Allen Ginsberg who was acting as Burroughs’s agent at the time. The publication of Nelson Algren’s novel The Man With The Golden Arm in 1949 inspired a trend for books about junkies, many of them mass-market paperbacks sold in newsagents rather than bookshops, and with commercial success in mind Wyn agreed to publish Burroughs. Though written in a noir-ish hard-boiled style, Junkie is autobiographical (the “Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict”), and lacks the kind of plot that readers of the genre attracted by Al Rossi’s lurid cover art might have expected.
Burroughs’s picaresque and frequently humorous narrative, with its hip talk and junkie jargon, is also told from the detached point of view of the hipster-addict, a neutrality which Wyn sought to counter-balance by yoking it to a reprint of Helbrant’s 1941 account of his “War Against the Dope Menace”. Burroughs was initially appalled at this appendage, but his motivation for writing Junkie was, as he later wrote, money and recognition, though neither were forthcoming at first as the book was largely ignored at the time of publication. More significantly, by mixing an orthodox narrative of drug experiences with occasional forays into set-pieces, or routines, Junkie also paved the way for Naked Lunch.
b. First UK edition:
London: Digit Books, 1957
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 4.5” x 7.25”, 160 pages.
(M&M A1b) *
According to Beatbooks catalog #92: First UK edition, and the first edition of Junkie as a separate item. Front cover art by Al Rossi, based on his earlier artwork for Ace Books. His sensational back cover art depicts a blonde with hypo and rolled-down stocking, and it was probably this, at least in part, that provoked the British censors to suppress the book after publication and order all the remaining copies to be pulped.
2. Burroughs, William. LETTER FROM A MASTER ADDICT TO DANGEROUS DRUGS
a. First edition:
Shrewsbury: British Journal of Addiction, 1957
Side-stapled sheets, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 13 pages, 50 copies.
(see M&M C1) *
An offprint of the Burroughs article appearing in the January 1957 issue of British Journal of Addiction (Vol. 53, No. 2) edited by John Yerbury Dent (M&M C1). This is Burroughs’ first appearance in print under his own name.
3. Burroughs, William S. THE NAKED LUNCH
a. First edition:
Paris: Olympia Press, July 1959
Sewn signatures bound in printed wrappers in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 4.5″ x 7″, 232 pages, 5000 copies. Dust jacket designed by Burroughs. Issued as No. 76 in the Traveller’s Companion Series. Preliminary issue with price on lower wrapper not canceled with over-stamp.
(M&M A2a)
According to Beatbooks catalog #89: Price on lower wrapper not canceled (copies distributed following the revaluation of the Franc in January 1960 had the printed price stamped over).
b. First US edition, revised:
New York City: Grove Press, 1962
Hardcover in paper and cloth-bound boards with gilt-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8″, 256 pages, 3500 copies. Printed prospectus issued.
(M&M A2b)
The contents of this edition differ from the Olympia first edition. This Grove Press edition includes as the Introduction, “Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness” [first published in Evergreen Review, Vol. 4, No. 11 (January-February 1960) (M&M C12)] and, as the Appendix,“Letter from a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs” [first published in The British Journal of Addiction, Vol. 53, No. 2 (January 1957) (M&M C1)].
According to BeatBooks catalog #20, publication of this edition triggered obscenity trials in Los Angeles and Boston.
4. Burroughs, William S. EXCERPT FROM PANTAPON ROSE
a. First edition:
San Francisco: Wallace Berman, 1959
Broadside, 4″ x 5″, letterpress printed by Wallace Berman.
(see M&M C11)
This broadside is laid into Semina, No. 4, edited by Wallace Berman (M&M C11).
5. Burroughs, William and Brion Gysin. THE EXTERMINATOR
a. First edition:
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1960
Sewn signatures bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 9.25″, 64 pages, 1000 copies, letterpress printed, designed and printed by Dave L. Haselwood and James F. McIlroy. Illustrated by Brion Gysin. Printed announcement issued.
(M&M A4a)
The first collection of cut-ups, containing material that Burroughs and Gysin completed before Minutes To Go was published.
b. First edition, second printing:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood Books, 1967
Sewn signatures bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 6″ x 9″, 51 pages, 1000 copies. Illustrated by Brion Gysin.
(M&M A4b)
6. Burroughs, William, Sinclair Beiles, Gregory Corso, and Brion Gysin. MINUTES TO GO
a. First edition:
Paris: Two Cities Editions, April 1960
Sewn signatures bound in illustrated wrappers, 5.25″ x 8.25″, 64 pages, 1000 copies. Cover design by Brion Gysin.
(M&M A3a)
This is the second collection of cut-ups to be published.
b. First US edition:
San Francisco: Beach Books, Texts & Documents, 1968
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.25″ x 8.5″, 66 pages, 1000 copies, distributed by City Lights Books.
(M&M A3b)
This edition is a facsimile of the first edition but for the addition of a Claude Pelieu collage.
7. Burroughs, William. THE SOFT MACHINE
a. First edition:
Paris: The Olympia Press, June 1961
Sewn signatures bound in printed wrappers in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 4.25″ x 7″, 184 pages, 5000 copies. Dust jacket designed by Brion Gysin.
(M&M A5a) *
b. First US edition, revised:
New York City: Grove Press, 1966
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with silver-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8″, 184 pages, 18,000 copies. Cover art by Burroughs. Author photo by Charles Henri Ford.
(M&M A5b) *
According to Beat Books catalog #48: Burroughs completely rewrote the text for this edition, partly as a response to criticisms that the first edition had been difficult to read.
According to Am Here catalog #3: This constitutes the revised expanded edition advertised but never published by Olympia.
8. Burroughs, William. THE TICKET THAT EXPLODED
a. First edition:
Paris: Olympia Press, December 1962
Sewn signatures bound in printed wrappers in printed and photo-illustrated dust jacket, 4.25″ x 6.75″, 184 pages, 5000 copies. Dust jacket designed by Ian Sommerville. Illustrated by Brion Gysin.
(M&M A6a)
b. First US edition, revised:
New York City: Grove Press, June 1967
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with black-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.25″ x 8″, 218 pages, 10,000 copies. Dust jacket designed by Kuhlman Associates. Author photo by Martha Rocher.
(M&M A6b) *
The Grove Press edition is a second version, a rearrangement of the first Olympia text with additions and expansions, plus “The Invisible Generation”, a piece incorporating two earlier articles from International Times (see M&M C157 and C162).
9. Burroughs, William. DEAD FINGERS TALK
a. First edition:
London: John Calder in association with Olympia Press, November 1963
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with gilt-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.25″ x 8″, 220 pages, 4000 copies. Cover photos by Ian Sommerville.
(M&M A7a)
Contains sections from The Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, and The Ticket That Exploded along with some previously unpublished material.
10. Burroughs, William. and Allen Ginsberg. THE YAGE LETTERS
a. First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, November 1963
Sewn signatures bound in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 5″ x 7.25″, 68 pages, 3000 copies, letterpress printed at Villiers Publications.
(M&M A8a) *
According to Beatbooks catalog #89: An “early epistolary novel” by Burroughs, “detailing picaresque incidents of search for telepathic-hallucinogenic-mind-expanding drug Yage” (back cover blurb). The letters date from 1953 and record Burroughs’ journeys through the Amazon jungle. Includes two drawings by Allen Ginsberg and his letters to Burroughs from 1960.
11. Burroughs, William S. ROOSEVELT AFTER INAUGURATION
a. First edition:
New York: Fuck You Press, January 1964
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 4.25″ x 5.5″, 24 pages, 500 copies, mimeograph printed by Ed Sanders. Illustrated by Allen Ginsberg.
(M&M A9a)
According to Beatbooks catalog #89: The routine, created by Burroughs and Kells Elvins while students at Harvard and originally intended for inclusion in “The Yage Letters”, was censored by the English printers, and subsequently printed in Floating Bear No. 9 (M&M C33), resulting in its editor LeRoi Jones being jailed.
12. Burroughs, William. THE COLDSPRING NEWS
a. First edition:
Flint: Fenian Head Centre Press, March 1964
Broadside,7.25″ x 12.5″.
(see M&M C124)
This broadside also appears folded and bound into The Spero, Vol. 1, No. 1 edited by Douglas and Kathy Casement (Fenian Head Centre Press, 1965) with the addition of a copyright notice at the bottom. (M&M C124)
13. Burroughs, William S. PRY YOURSELF LOOSE AND LISTEN
a. First edition:
Tangier: Ira Cohen, Spring 1964
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5″ x 8″, 14 pages.
(see M&M C68-C71)
An offprint collecting all the Burroughs appearances in Gnaoua, No. 1, edited by Ira Cohen.
14. Burroughs, William S. NOVA EXPRESS
a. First edition:
New York City: Grove Press, November 1964
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with black-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8.25″, 190 pages, 10,000 copies, printed at The Book Press. Foreword Note by Burroughs. Cover design by Roy Kuhlman. Author photograph by Martha Rocher.
(M&M A10a)
According to Burroughs’ Foreword Note: The section called “This Horrible Case” was written in collaboration with Mr. Ian Sommerville, a mathematician—Mr. Sommerville also contributed the technical notes in the section called “Chinese Laundry”—An extension of Brion Gysin’ cut-up method which I call the fold-in method has been used in this book which is consequently a composite of many writers living and dead.
15. Burroughs, William. VALENTINE’S DAY READING
a. First edition:
New York: American Theatre for Poets, February 1965
Side-stapled in printed cover sheet, 8.5″ x 11″, 14 pages, mimeograph printed.
(M&M F12)
Includes “Transcript of Dutch Schultz’s Last Words” and the first column from The Coldspring News, “On The Back Porch of his Farm”.
16. Burroughs, William. TIME
a. First edition:
New York: “C” Press, 1965
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 32 pages, 1000 copies (886 in a trade edition; 100 numbered and signed; 10 lettered A-J, hardbound, with original manuscript page by Burroughs and original drawing by Gysin, signed; and four hardcover numbered copies hors commerce). Cover art by Burroughs. Illustrated by Brion Gysin. Edited by Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, and Joe Brainard.
(M&M A11a)
b. Pirate edition:
London: Urgency Press Rip-Off, May 1972
Top-stapled with printed cover sheet, 8″ x 13″, 32 pages, 45 copies. Edited by Roy Pennington. Published on the occasion of the Bickershaw Festival.
(M&M A11b)
17. Burroughs, William S. WILT CAUGHT IN TIME
a. First edition:
New Orleans: Loujon Press, c.1965
Broadside, 6″ x 9″, letterpress printed by Jon Edgar Webb and Gypsy Lou Webb.
(see M&M C46)
An offprint of the Burroughs contribution to The Outsider, No. 2, edited by Jon Edgar Webb and Gypsy Lou Webb (M&M C46).
According to Jeff Weddle in “The Loujon Press: An Historical Analysis”: Burroughs’ submission for issue two originally bore the title, “Cuts from ‘Word Line’ William Burroughs for Hassan i Sabbah.” The piece was done using Burroughs’ distinctive, jumbled, “cut-up” technique and had no easily discernible narrative flow or quickly grasped meaning. Perhaps for these reasons, Webb heavily edited and re-titled the piece, casting it as a poem in The Outsider number two. Burroughs’ manuscript bears a notation, again in Webb’s hand, stating that the piece was “condensed and rearranged into “wilt caught in time,” the title under which it appeared in the magazine. While Webb’s version of Burroughs’ piece bears little resemblance to the author’s original submission, no record has been uncovered showing Burroughs’ response to Webb’s heavy editing of his work.
18. Burroughs, William S. HEALTH BULLETIN: APO-33
a. First edition:
New York: Fuck You Press, 1965
Side-stapled sheets with printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 54 pages, 10-20 copies, mimeograph printed by Ed Sanders.
(M&M A12a) *
According to Sanders “maybe as many as ten or twenty” copies were distributed before he halted publication due to Burroughs’ dissatisfaction with the copy he’d received.
b. Second edition:
San Francisco: Beach Books, Texts, & Documents, 1966
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 24 pages, 3000 copies.
(M&M A12b)
This printing is a photo-offset reproduction of Burroughs’ manuscript and scrapbook pages, featuring the three-column cut-up style, compiled by Mary Beach and Claude Pélieu.
19. Burroughs, William S. THE INVISIBLE GENERATION
a. First edition:
London: Project Sigma, December 1966
Broadside, 11.5″ x 17″, 1000 copies, offset printed.
(see M&M C159)
This item was not given a Sigma index number and no evidence exists to show distribution except by International Times itself which provided the offprints. Reprinted from International Times, No. 3 (November 1966) (M&M C157).
20. Burroughs, William S. THE INVISIBLE GENERATION (continued)
a. First edition:
London: Lovebooks Ltd, December 1966
Broadside, 22.5″ x 30.25″, 200 copies, silk-screened, designed by Michael English so that part of the card could be cut out and assembled to make a word-machine. Published as International Times, No. 5.5.
(see M&M C160) *
21. Burroughs, William S., Claude Pélieu, and Carl Weissner. SO WHO OWNS DEATH TV?
a. First edition:
San Francisco: Beach Books, Texts, & Documents, 1967
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 5.5″, 12 pages, 3000 copies; there was a variant issue of 200 copies on black paper printed in silver ink.
(M&M A13a)
b. Second edition, expanded:
San Francisco: Beach Books, Texts, & Documents, 1967
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 5.5″, 20 pages, 3000 copies. This expanded edition includes photo-collages by Jean-Jacques Lebel and Liam O’Gallagher.
(M&M A13b)
22. Burroughs, William S. SCIENTOLOGY REVISITED
a. First edition:
New York: Scientology East, c.1968
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 8 pages.
(not in M&M) *
Reprinted from Mayfair, Vol. 3, No. 1 (January 1968) (M&M C187)
23. Burroughs, William S. THE DEAD STAR
a. First edition:
San Francisco: Nova Broadcast Press, November 1969
Broadside (8″ x 26.75″), folded and stapled into printed wrappers, 4.74″ x 8″, 2000 copies. Edited by Jan Herman. Published as Nova Broadcast, No. 5
(M&M A14a)
The first US publication of a piece done in Burroughs’ familiar scrapbook, photo-collage 3-column newspaper style, originally published in Jeff Nuttall’s My Own Mag ‘Dutch Schultz’ issue.
24. Burroughs, William S. THE LAST WORDS OF DUTCH SCHULTZ
a. First edition:
London: Cape Goliard Press, May 1970
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with red-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 6.25″ x 9.75″, 88 pages. Cover art and illustrations by R.B. Kitaj.
(M&M 17a) *
A film-script inspired by the official transcript of the last words of mobster Dutch Schultz, recorded by a police stenographer as he lay dying in hospital.
25. Burroughs, William S. ALI’S SMILE
a. First edition:
Brighton: Unicorn Books, October 1971
Hardcover in buckram-bound boards with gilt-stamped cover, 6.25″ x 8″, 44 pages, 99 copies numbered and signed, printed by Richard Moseley at Graphic Workshop. Issued in a carton which also contains a 12-inch LP record of Burroughs reading the second draft of the text.
(M&M A19a, G6) *
b. First edition, second printing:
Gottingen: Expanded Media Editions, October 1973
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.75″ x 7.5″, 40 pages. Bilingual edition with German text translated by Carl Weissner. Photographs of the author by Udo Breger. Published as Expanded Media Editions, No. 12.
(M&M D28)
26. Burroughs, William S. THE WILD BOYS: A BOOK OF THE DEAD
a. First edition:
New York: Grove Press, 1971
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with gilt-stamped spine and blind-stamped front cover in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8.25″, 184 pages.
(M&M A20a) *
27. Burroughs, William S. ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION 1970-71
a. First edition:
Cambridge: Blackmoor Head Press, October 1971
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8″ x 10.25″, 76 pages, 500 copies. Printed for Henri Chopin and his Collection OU by Ian Ormiston at the Blackmoor Head Press. Cover art by Brion Gysin. Text in English and French; French translation by Jean Chopin. Published as Collection OU, No. 2.
(M&M A21a)
28. Burroughs, William S., Brion Gysin, and Ian Sommerville. LET THE MICE IN, edited by Jan Herman
a. First edition:
West Glover, Vt.: Something Else Press, February 1973
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with silver-stamped spine and front cover in printed dust jacket, 6.25″ x 9.25″, 74 pages, 500 copies (plus 1000 copies in wrappers), designed and printed by Graham Mackintosh at Noel Young Press in Santa Barbara.
(M&M A22a-b)
Includes texts and cut-ups by Burroughs (“The Invisible Generation”, “Word Authority More Habit Forming Than Heroin”, and “Parenthetically 7 Hertz”), and Ian Sommerville, plus several sepia photographs of the authors, the Dream Machine, etc.
29. Burroughs, William S. EXTERMINATOR! A NOVEL
a. First edition:
New York: Viking Press, August 1973
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with white-stamped spine and black-stamped front cover in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.25″ x 8″, 170 pages, 7500 copies.
(M&M A23a) *
Note: A collection of short routines and other material, mostly from The Wild Boys.
30. Burroughs, William S. WHITE SUBWAY
a. First edition:
London: Aloes Books, September 1973
Perfect-bound in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 8.25″, 74 pages, 1000 copies (25 of which are numbered and signed).
(M&M A24a)
A collection of various pieces, its title taken from a section of The Soft Machine, including cut-up and three-column style texts (“Who Is the 3rd…?”, “The Last Post Danger Ahead”, and “From a Distant Hand Lifted”), originally published in little literary magazines such as Gnaoua, Spero, Underground Telegram, Kulchur, Arcade, Lines, Bulletin from Nothing, and Birmingham Bulletin. Also includes a piece by Alan Ansen, and Paul Bowles’s essay, “Burroughs In Tangier”.
31. Burroughs, William S. MAYFAIR ACADAMY SERIES MORE OR LESS, edited by Roy Pennington
a. First edition:
Brighton: Urgency Press Rip-Off, 1973
Saddle-stapled in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 5″ x 8.25″, 104 pages, 650 pages. Printed on different colour papers, stapled and trimmed at the press operated by Bill Butler’s partner, Mike Hughes, above the Unicorn bookshop in Brighton.
(M&M A25a)
Note: Reprints ten of the Burroughs ‘Academy Bulletins’ from Mayfair magazine (there were 21 in the series all together), along with other articles he wrote for them, together with an essay on Burroughs “originally presented as an M.A. thesis in Philosophy” by the book’s publisher, Roy Pennington.
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[* not in archive]