[Item #3987] The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead. William S. Burroughs.
The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead
The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead
The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead
The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead

The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead

New York, NY: Grove Press, 1971. First Edition. In her fine critical biography of William S. Burroughs, Jennie Skerl writes that "The wild boys represent the release of demonic energy in conscious fantasy, which Burroughs believes is a means of human liberation- both personal and social. By bringing the unconscious irrational desires of the individual and the group to consciousness and by playing with these forces in artistic structures, Burroughs seeks to free, understand, and regulate man's irrational desires." (pg. 83). This work is not dominated by the cut-up method that WSB applied so extensively during the 1960s, and is therefore easier to read although its significance lies beneath its surface. “The Wild Boys: a Book of the Dead was first published in this edition in 1971, followed by the first British edition published by Calder and Boyars in 1972, with various softcover editions thereafter. See Maynard & Miles A20a-e, pp. 73-78. In a review of “The Wild Boys: a Book of the Dead” from December 12, 1971, Alfred Kazin wrote in The New York Times Book Review: “William S. Burroughs is a great autoeroticist—of writing, not sex. He gets astral kicks by composing in blocks, scenes, repetitive and identical memories galvanizing themselves into violent fantasies, the wild mixing of pictures, words, the echoes of popular speech…Burroughs is the purest writer in Barney Rosset’s Grove [Press], and not just because in this book he more than ever turns his obsession with cold, callous homosexual coupling into a piece of American science fiction.” Book in very fine condition, with only slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges. Dust-jacket in fine condition with only slightest rubbing to front, back covers at bottom fine-edge & spine-edge; slight shelf-wear to same; bump-crease at top right-hand corner of front cover; bump to bottom right-hand corner of same; light bump to bottom left-hand corner of back cover; minor gauge on back cover just below center-middle near rightmost fine-edge; minor 3/4" horizontal crease to spine at bottom, likely resultant from simple shelf-wear. Dust jacket in fine condition, with only slightest rubbing to front, back covers esp. at fine-edges; minute chipping, closed tear to bottom left corner of front cover; closed tear to top left-hand corner of same; slightest closed tear at back cover; price-clip to recto flap of dust jacket at top left; former bookseller price written in black thin pen ink below clip. Very Fine / Fine. [Item #3987]

Price: $250.00