Burroughs, William S.

Queer

ISBN: 0670808334
New York, NY: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1985. First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by William S. Burroughs "I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing. I live with the constant threat of possession, and a constant need to escape from possession, from Control. So the death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out." (from author's introduction, pg. xxii) Thus does William S. Burroughs, Foremost Founding Father of the Beat Generation & one of the most important influences on twentieth century-&-Beyond literature & culture, describe his grim epiphany upon publishing this early fragment more than three decades after he wrote it. As famous, if not more so, for WSB's controversial introduction as the work itself, Queer recounts WSB's pining after "Allerton," a thinly disguised ficitonal version of the real-life A. Lewis Marker, in Mexico City & the South American jungles as they search for shamans & their potions during the late 1940s through the dawn of the 1950s. The events of this novel-memoir are shadowed by a growing sense of menace & evil, and end just before the actual notorious incident that every hard-core Burroughsian has deeply pondered but which will ever remain an enigma: The shooting death of WSB's common-law wife, Joan Vollmer Burroughs, at his hand during a drunken "William Tell" performance. We offer here the first hardcover edition, first printing (Schottlaender, A59(A), pg. 19; Shoaf, Section 1, No. 66, pg. 54), featuring reproduction of an artwork by George Baselitz ("Orangenesser X," 1981) on front & back cover of dust jacket; & frontispiece of photograph of WSB with hand-written caption taken by Allen Ginsberg in 1953. Opposite frontispiece, on the title page, WSB has hand-written his signature below his printed name. A keystone collectible in the WSB canon, especially with this fine, bold signature; & among this writer's favorites, with its lucid, atmospheric & compelling narrative that predates WSB's more challenging subsequent hallucinatory & cut-up works. Book in very fine condition with only a bit of wear & fading to cloth at edges & corners of front, back covers & spine; very light spotting to upper edge of text block. Interior very fine, virtually mint. Unclipped dust jacket in very fine condition with only very slight rubbing & light browning at margins of front, esp. back covers & spine; very light wear, a few tiny bumps & short, faint creases at edges & corners of same; one short, closed vertical tear at upper right edge of back cover. Very Fine / Very fine. [Item #3311]

Price: $300.00