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The Letters, Vol. 1: 1945-1959
Guru of the Beat generation, controversial eminence grise of the international avant-garde, dark prophet and blackest of black-humor satirists, William S. Burroughs has had a range of influence rivalled by few living writers. This meticulously assembled volume of his correspondence 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, they also show how in the period 1945-1959, letter-writing was itself integral to his life and to his fiction-making. These letters reveal the extraordinary route that took Burroughs from narrative to anti-narrative, from Junky to Naked Lunch and the discovery of cut-ups, a turbulent journey crossing two decades and three continents. The letters track the great shifts in Burroughs' crucial relationship with Allen Ginsberg, from lecturing wise man ("Watch your semantics young man") to total dependence ("Your absence causes me, at times, acute pain.") to near-estrangement ("I sometimes feel you have mixed me up with someone else doesn't live here anymore."). They show Burroughs' initial despair at the obscenity of his own letters, some of which became parts of Naked Lunch, and his gradual recognition of the work's true nature ("It's beginning to look like a modern Inferno.") They reveal the harrowing lows and ecstatic highs of his emotions, and lay bare the pain of coming to terms with a childhood trauma ("Such horror in bringing it out I was afraid my heart would stop."). It is a story as revealing of his fellow Beats as it is of Burroughs: he writes of Kerouac and Cassady in the midst of the journey immortalized as On the Road ("Neal is, of course, the very soul of this voyage into pure, abstract, meaningless motion."), and to Ginsberg as he was writing Howl ("I sympathize with your feelings of depression, beatness: 'We have seen the best of our time.'"). And throughout runs the unmistakable Burroughs voice, the u
472 pages, Paperback
First published July 27, 1993
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About the author
William S. Burroughs
448 books7,044 followersWilliam Seward Burroughs II, (also known by his pen name William Lee) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer.
A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century".
His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays.
Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.
He was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence. He left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studied English, and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and U.S. Navy in 1942 to serve in World War II, he dropped out and became afflicted with the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of what became the countercultural movement of the Beat Generation.
Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco. Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a controversy-fraught work that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as The Nova Trilogy (1961–64). In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift", a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion" of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War", while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius".
Burroughs had one child, William Seward Burroughs III (1947-1981), with his second wife Joan Vollmer. Vollmer died in 1951 in Mexico City. Burroughs was convicted of manslaughter in Vollmer's death, an event that deeply permeated all of his writings. Burroughs died at his home in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack in 1997.
A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century".
His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays.
Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.
He was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence. He left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studied English, and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and U.S. Navy in 1942 to serve in World War II, he dropped out and became afflicted with the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of what became the countercultural movement of the Beat Generation.
Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco. Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a controversy-fraught work that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as The Nova Trilogy (1961–64). In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift", a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion" of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War", while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius".
Burroughs had one child, William Seward Burroughs III (1947-1981), with his second wife Joan Vollmer. Vollmer died in 1951 in Mexico City. Burroughs was convicted of manslaughter in Vollmer's death, an event that deeply permeated all of his writings. Burroughs died at his home in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack in 1997.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 11, 2025
'I know that the forces of spontaneous, emergent Life are stronger than the forces of evil, repression and death, and that the forces of death will destroy themselves.'
April 27, 2008
The birth of a writer. Burroughs tests out various voices and then seems seized by Swift. Most of his mid to late 50's letters are hilarious, but they're borne out of tremendous suffering and exhausting bouts of creativity. It's amazing to see how Burroughs used letters as palimpsests on which to create, graft and rebuild significant portions of his early fiction (Junky, Queer, and the great anti-novel, Naked Lunch). This collection is essential reading for any WSB fan.
August 13, 2015
Burroughs the man, the writer, the innovator
Fantastic read. Read this and you will see, smell, touch, taste, hear and most of all experience the real William S Burroughs right down to the marrow.
Out of all the beats, it soon becomes apparent that not only was Burroughs the most articulate, educated writer (which really comes through in his correspondence), but also that he was the most intelligent and crucial figure of the whole counterculture movement.
This book reveals how he was able to masterfully blend his crazy and often hilarious routines right down in the essence, the chromosomal level of his letters as either 'practice' towards building his literary masterpieces or as actual palimpsests from which he could excise certain sections and resew them to make new texts like an expert surgeon/author.
There is also plenty of pain and pathos within these pages as Burroughs tries repeatedly and repeatedly to kick junk (often convincing himself that he no longer needs it or is off it, even though he is usually right back on the wagon within weeks or months) as well as his struggles to overcome heartbreaks or unrequited love (I think he was in love with Ginsberg and later on with Gysin).
I have always respected Burroughs as a vital writer and intellectual of the twentieth century. But this book, made me LOVE him.
Highly, highly recommended.
Fantastic read. Read this and you will see, smell, touch, taste, hear and most of all experience the real William S Burroughs right down to the marrow.
Out of all the beats, it soon becomes apparent that not only was Burroughs the most articulate, educated writer (which really comes through in his correspondence), but also that he was the most intelligent and crucial figure of the whole counterculture movement.
This book reveals how he was able to masterfully blend his crazy and often hilarious routines right down in the essence, the chromosomal level of his letters as either 'practice' towards building his literary masterpieces or as actual palimpsests from which he could excise certain sections and resew them to make new texts like an expert surgeon/author.
There is also plenty of pain and pathos within these pages as Burroughs tries repeatedly and repeatedly to kick junk (often convincing himself that he no longer needs it or is off it, even though he is usually right back on the wagon within weeks or months) as well as his struggles to overcome heartbreaks or unrequited love (I think he was in love with Ginsberg and later on with Gysin).
I have always respected Burroughs as a vital writer and intellectual of the twentieth century. But this book, made me LOVE him.
Highly, highly recommended.
May 11, 2011
This is Burroughs with none of the literary experimentalism and artifice and he is one hard-boiled dude. I think that current day libertarians would take to this writing like ducks to duckponds! The grit builds, letter by letter as the Burroughs arc progresses. Man! What a crazy life - and all in there and between the lines to his pals, Allen and Jack. Too cool for school.
July 12, 2014
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.
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.
January 1, 2017
Hoopis teistmoodi vaade biidihärradele, võiks öelda, et täiskasvanu pilgu läbi, aga täiskasvanu on vaheldumisi heroiini/morfiini/kokaiini/kanepi/u saja eri tableti, muu taime ja kemikaali vaevades - kohe-kohe jätab igaveseks maha, juba jättiski, juba päris kauaks, oi näe, hakkab jälle pihta. Ime, et ta ellu jäi, ime, et ta kirjutas (ehkki raamatuid ikka heroiinivaheaegadel, suurem osa muud kraami ei läinud tal õieti arvessegi). Ma olen midagi temalt kunagi lugenud ka, aga nii ammu, et enam ei ole 100% kindel, kas "Junkyt" või "Queeri", aga nyyd on huvi muidugi olemas, võib-olla kunagi julgen isegi "Naked lunchi" lugeda. Ja äge, et Burroughs tekitas Ginsbergi vastu sellise huvi, mida Kerouac päris ei ole suutnud.
February 22, 2008
The cut-and-paste method of his better known novels isn't very evident in these dark and witty correspondences. What you will find instead are the weird, vaudevillian shtick of one of America's great satirists. Burroughs was probably one of the most cosmopolitan Ugly Americans you'll ever read. Bet you can't read just one!
December 20, 2010
This book is great if you want to get to know the "real" William S. Burroughs or at least what was going on his mind from 1945-1959. This book even gives you a better understanding of WSB than the excellent Burroughs biography Literary Outlaw. I hope Penguin releases the second volume of letters sometime soon.
July 26, 2010
This book, like "Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of Williams S. Burroughs" (by Ted Morgan)--which I read shortly after "The Letters"--was inspiring, enlightening, and often disturbing (as would be expected with Burroughs). These letters are often businesslike--IE Allen Ginsberg was Burroughs' agent in the 50's and was responsible for the publishing of "Junky" in 1953. I'd recommend reading "The Letters" after "Literary Outlaw", as "Literary Outlaw" provides a detailed context for these letters. In "The Letters" I felt a genuine shift once Burroughs started working on what would eventually become "Naked Lunch" in Tangier. During that period, the quality of the letters (the majority are written to Allen Ginsberg, some to Jack Kerouac, as well as sporadic communications with other members of Burroughs' international community) becomes more focused, forceful and driven. Nonetheless, in this body of work, the emotional state of Burroughs remains elusive and mysterious. I believe this collection of letters would be very helpful to anyone pursuing the path of avant-garde writer. Burroughs was not interested in creating compromised or "saleable" work, and while he was tormented by this aspect of his profession, in the end he did exactly what he wanted to do and became influential in the process.
October 6, 2017
Interesting individual.
June 15, 2018
A more revealing portrait than a biography, although it helps to have read one.
February 12, 2019
Didn't finish. Read up to 1955. Good for one who is a superfan.
March 8, 2015
excellent excellent excellent! very intimate mad ravings mostly addressed to allen ginsberg. burroughs first flees new orleans when he's charged with weed and heroin possession and moves to mexico city. he has easier time there with drugs and hitting on 13 year old boys, but he shoots and kills his wife accidentally while playing william tell, and ends up in tangiers where again he does drugs freely and has sex with underage rent-boys for a dollar. some of ginsberg's letters to tangiers gets lost when he lives a bit reclusively in mexico, and burroughs freaks out thinking ginsberg decided to abandon him. he starts writing to mutual friends jack kerouac and neal cassady daily and pleads them to convince ginsberg to write to him. there's a 5 page letter to kerouac that is especially poignant considering what a misanthropic gun-toting life-long junkie burroughs was. he says to kerouac: "tell allen i plead guilty to vampirism and other crimes against life. but i love him and nothing cancels love." kerouac, being the drunk fuck that he was, says "if you love allen so much why don't you come back to the states and live with him?" not considering ginsberg just wanted to be close friends with burroughs, and had no sexual interest in him. i wish ginsberg's responses to all these letters were available.
April 3, 2012
Biographical Note on William Seward Burroughts
I have no past life at all being a notorious plant or "intrusion" if you prefer the archeological word for an "intruded" artefact. I walk in passport was allegedly born St. Louis, Missouri, more or less haute bourgeois circumstances -- that is he could have got in the St. Louis Country Club because at that time nobody had anything special against him but times changed and lots of people had lots of things against him and he got his name in the papers and there were rumors of uh legal trouble. Remember? I prefer not to. Harvard 1936 AB. Nobody ever saw him there but he had the papers on them. Functioned once as an Exterminator in Chicago and learned some basic principles of "force majeur." He achieved a state of inanimate matter in Tanger with chemical assistants. Resuscitated by dubious arts he travelled extensively in all directions open to him.
In any case he wrote a book and that finished him. They killed the author many times in different agents concentrated on the road I pass, achieving thereby grey-hounds, menstrual cramps and advanced yoga to a distance of two feet legitimate terrain... And never the hope of ground that is yours
I have no past life at all being a notorious plant or "intrusion" if you prefer the archeological word for an "intruded" artefact. I walk in passport was allegedly born St. Louis, Missouri, more or less haute bourgeois circumstances -- that is he could have got in the St. Louis Country Club because at that time nobody had anything special against him but times changed and lots of people had lots of things against him and he got his name in the papers and there were rumors of uh legal trouble. Remember? I prefer not to. Harvard 1936 AB. Nobody ever saw him there but he had the papers on them. Functioned once as an Exterminator in Chicago and learned some basic principles of "force majeur." He achieved a state of inanimate matter in Tanger with chemical assistants. Resuscitated by dubious arts he travelled extensively in all directions open to him.
In any case he wrote a book and that finished him. They killed the author many times in different agents concentrated on the road I pass, achieving thereby grey-hounds, menstrual cramps and advanced yoga to a distance of two feet legitimate terrain... And never the hope of ground that is yours
April 2, 2016
Witness Ol' Seward graduate from clumsy correspondent to all-out avenger of the WORD, man. Watch as he treats his close friends to oodles of guff about higher consciousness and Scientology and Reich's Orgones. Hear him describe sleeping with boys across four (count them: FOUR!) continents. See his junk addiction in all it's gooey sadness.
Good news is the humour in The Naked Lunch is absolutely Burroughs' own. A real special sort of dark sarcasm. A self-servingness that was inherited by Pynchon.
The letters shine some light on the jumble that is NL. Funny how much WSB wanted to meet Paul Bowles. So frickin' fickle - if WSB was my pen pal I would have dropped him the first time he talked over me in letter form. Letters are at least as good as (t)NL.
Good news is the humour in The Naked Lunch is absolutely Burroughs' own. A real special sort of dark sarcasm. A self-servingness that was inherited by Pynchon.
The letters shine some light on the jumble that is NL. Funny how much WSB wanted to meet Paul Bowles. So frickin' fickle - if WSB was my pen pal I would have dropped him the first time he talked over me in letter form. Letters are at least as good as (t)NL.
August 24, 2010
i'm rereading this. i need it after the dan brown.
it's so refreshing to know there are folks like wsb out there. reading the letters he sent to various others, primarily allen ginsbergh, gives a safe glimpse into an adventurous spirit unlike most. he was interested in exploring in every sense of the word. none of it was safe. i've always thought it was impressive wsb lived as long as he did. this collection is insightful for those that have read NAKED LUNCH and would like a peek behind the curtain at its creation. many of the pieces i remember from that "novel" were originally part of these letters. worth it for the die-hard wsb fan.
it's so refreshing to know there are folks like wsb out there. reading the letters he sent to various others, primarily allen ginsbergh, gives a safe glimpse into an adventurous spirit unlike most. he was interested in exploring in every sense of the word. none of it was safe. i've always thought it was impressive wsb lived as long as he did. this collection is insightful for those that have read NAKED LUNCH and would like a peek behind the curtain at its creation. many of the pieces i remember from that "novel" were originally part of these letters. worth it for the die-hard wsb fan.
October 30, 2014
Utterly fascinating to watch Burroughs go from uptight, conservative trust fund asshole to freewheeling queer ex-pat intent on pushing the creative envelope as far as it will go. To watch how antagonistic his relationship with Ginsberg began and how loving it ultimately turned. Shocking to find out what happened to Kiki (I never knew). My only wish is that there had been some of the letters to Lewis that undoubtedly were written. The speed with which Burroughs wrote those early works was phenomenal, and the letter provide such an intimate glance into his process. Not for everyone, but essential if you are into The Beats.
November 27, 2007
Burroughs was one hell of a letter writer. In fact his correspondence served as a rough draft to his fictional work like "Naked Lunch." Very impressive.
It's interesting that Burroughs appealed to my teenage years for some reason. I think due to his whole visual sense. The man who looked like a banker that was a perv. It made sense to me as a teenie.
It's interesting that Burroughs appealed to my teenage years for some reason. I think due to his whole visual sense. The man who looked like a banker that was a perv. It made sense to me as a teenie.
December 5, 2007
there is something cathartic for me about writing letters, thanks be to burroughs who started me on the kick-although his are far more amusing
July 21, 2008
Corso, Ginsberg, Kerouac...by far Burroughs is the best letter writer.
December 18, 2012
Really really inneressin
March 30, 2013
all there
June 9, 2015
A fascinating insight into the life of Burroughs as lived. Funny, witty, philosophical and self destructive, he lived totally his own man.
June 21, 2016
Amazing collection of letters. Worth it for the remarks on Naked Lunch alone, but really great from beginning to end. I'm looking forward to reading Vol 2.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews