Burroughs, William S.

Interzone

ISBN: 0330310720
London, England: Picador/ Pan Books Ltd., 1989. First UK Edition. Hardcover. " "Interzone" was the working title for the novel William S. Burroughs composed from roughly 1953 through 1958- the work that, when finally published under the title Naked Lunch, revolutionized the modern novel to a degree perhaps unmatched by any other work in this century. Burroughs' readers will recognize "Interzone" as the dreamlike locus of so much of his fiction, an imagined world where the laws of time and space and conventional human personality are suspended- where everything is both possible and permitted. In 1984 the original manuscript of that book, once thought lost, was rediscovered among Allen Ginsberg's papers...(uncovering) a long, coruscating, emetically brilliant section titled "WORD" that was cut from the final manuscript of Naked Lunch, save for a few scattered fragments. For this section alone, Interzone would constitute an important literary event; containing, as it does, this climactic text written with the white heat of Burroughs' later style." (from front flap) The re-discovered, critically important texts among the "word horde" from which Naked Lunch, the breakthrough novel of William S. Burroughs, was extracted. With an introduction by James Grauerholz, WSB's foremost associate & now the guardian of his legacy. Grauerholz' profoundly insightful & astute introductory essay concludes: "This book is meant to portray the development of Burroughs' mature writing style, and to present a selection of vintage Burroughs from the mid-1950s- a kind of writing he can no more repeat than he can once again be forty-four years old in Tangier. The willfully outrageous tone of voice represents the exorcism of his four decades of oppressive sexual and social conditioning, and his closely-observed experience of mankind's inexhaustible ugliness and ignorance. Only by dispensing with any concept of "bad taste" or self-repression could he liberate his writing instrument to explore the landscapes of Earth and Space in his work written over the following thirty years. Reading Interzone, you are present at the beginning." (pgs. xxii-xxiii) Offered here is the first UK edition, hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, first printing as indicated by number sequence on copyright page, published later the same year as the first American edition (see our Item No. 2668) & with alternative jacket graphics. Shoaf, Section I, No. 73(c), pg. 58; Schottlaender, A64 (B), pg. 20. A rare & most collectible version of an essential work in the canon of WSB, a Founding Father of the Beat Generation & one of the greatest, most influential literary & cultural figures of all time. Book in very fine condition with only a bit of rubbing to front, back covers & spine; very light rubbing to edges of text block esp. upper edge. Interior very fine, substantially mint. Dust jacket fine with mild rubbing & faint scratching to front, back covers & spine; very slight wear & a few tiny bumps at edges & corners of same & flaps; one very short, closed tear at upper edge of rear flap; small amount of residue from sticker removal at mostly blank area near upper right corner of back cover; a few tiny residue spots at blank area next to barcode at lower left of back cover. Very Fine / Fine. [Item #4318]

Price: $50.00