The Letters of William S. Burroughs, Vol. 1: 1945-1959 [Paperback]

William S. Burroughs (Author), Oliver Harris (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1994

This volume of correspondence vividly documents the personal and cultural history through which Burroughs developed, revealing clues to illuminate his life and keys to open up his text. "Sheds light on both the personal demons and lacerating misanthropy that inspired Burroughs' brilliant literary highjinks."-- Entertainment Weekly.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

180 letters dispatched from his self-imposed exile in East Texas, Mexico City and Tangiers chronicle Burroughs's early development as a writer.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The first of a projected two volumes, these letters cover the activities of Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac in the years that gave birth to the Beat Generation. Written mostly to Ginsberg or Kerouac, the letters provide a rare glimpse into Burroughs's psyche, revealing his struggle with drug addiction, his confusion over his sexual identity, and his search for a form fluid enough to mirror his mind and art. Although much of this correspondence first appeared in Letters to Allen Ginsberg 1953-1957 (1982) and in The Yage Letters (1963), this new collection is highly recommended both for the additional letters it contains and for its detailed explanatory notes.
- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140094520
• ISBN-13: 978-0140094527
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #202,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Burroughs as a man, not as a legend, September 25, 1998

By 

William Errickson Jr. (Raleigh, NC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Letters of William S. Burroughs, Vol. 1: 1945-1959 (Paperback)

That Kirkus review is cheap, trite and obvious. "Godfather of Grunge"? "MTV generations' idea of a literay outlaw"? What's that mean? They were right when they said he didn't come off as a literary "fella"--why? because Literature is phony and an obstruction to truth--"All that is literature has fallen from me, thank God," wrote Henry Miller, and Burroughs exemplifies that. He was interested in Life, and escaping oppression. Little is made of him shooting his wife? Sorry. His heroin cures? Sorry. Save that for all the lame Hollywood hacks who succumb to addiction only because they know their "life story" will sell. I think this is a great book, one that shows the human, caring, funny, straightforward man Burroughs was in a time of even greater hypocrisy and corruption than today. I think he was dead on the mark in the fifties about America becoming a police state.... Burroughs still upsets conventional literary categories, and the only way the "establishment" can deal with him is to joke and condescend and offer him up as caricature, as Kirkus did. Did anyone read the pathetic obituaries of him? They had no clue what he really did. As he said: "We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems." No glot....c'lom Fliday....

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Burroughs revealed, May 28, 2000

By 

perival (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Letters of William S. Burroughs, Vol. 1: 1945-1959 (Paperback)

I've read a fair amount of Burroughs, and this book is the best of all, the volume that lets you see into the soul of the man. Many of the letters are to Ginsberg, some to Kerouac and others. The stories he tells are funny and scary, sometimes heartbreaking. From these letters you can see where the more imposing material came from, the genesis of the work that came out in the sixties.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Piece in the Burroughs Puzzle, June 14, 2006

By 

Steven W. Cooper "Steve" (Perigueux, FRANCE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Letters of William S. Burroughs, Vol. 1: 1945-1959 (Paperback)

Burroughs and his writings are complex and problematic. The various characters that express themselves in his personality evoke so many contradictory reactions that it's hard to get the author himself into focus. And reading his novels outside the context of the man himself is particularly unsatisfying. That's why this book of letters is so welcome. Along with recordings of his routines (that fascinating voice conveying such dry, ironic malice - "The Best of William Burroughs, from Giorno Poetry Systems" has some of the best I've heard), these letters give us a useful perspective on Burroughs to better appraise his work.

The Burroughs who emerges in these letters stands in sharp contrast to the persona he cultivated. The cool, world-wise narrator/character of his novels is shown here to have been self-deluded, weak-willed, prone to bouts of love-sickness, and particularly susceptible to being hoodwinked. But it's like the complementary hidden side of any real person. There is wit and humanity here in the titanic struggle he waged to integrate a powerful evil he felt deep in his soul. While the struggle often manifested as a battle with addiction, the evil wasn't junk: It was a pure bloody-mindedness that we all have inside. "Likely a survival mechanism inherited from our simian forebears," Burroughs might have opined.

How much of these letters is lies? The editor helps with some fact-checking footnotes, but many key facts can never be checked. A tantalizing psychological dimension is opened when Burroughs writes about his stunted heterosexual alter-ego, but Burroughs wasn't above subverting facts to manipulate people. Whatever the truth is we'll never know for sure, but these writings are entertaining and thought-provoking. They detail the inner workings of a special mind shaped by unique circumstances. Publication of these letters proves that for all his bloody-minded self-sabotage, Burroughs' output refuses to be marginalized.