Junky by William S. Burroughs [1977 PAPERBACK / FIRST COMPLETE EDITION]

  • $42.00


Junky by William S. Burroughs 

FIRST COMPLETE & UNEXPURGATED EDITION [1977] PENGUIN BOOKS

Mass market paperback.  First Penguin printing with rare cover & Gisberg intro in excellent condition. 

Small stain on outer page edges, visible on of first dozen or two pages. Otherwise, like new.  


First Complete & Unexpurgated Edition w/ intro by Allen Ginsberg. 

Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch, an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junky, his first novel. It is a candid eye-witness account of times and places that are now long gone, an unvarnished field report from the American post-war underground. Unafraid to portray himself in 1953 as a confirmed member of two socially-despised under classes (a narcotics addict and a homosexual), Burroughs was writing as a trained anthropologist when he unapologetically described a way of life - in New York, New Orleans, and Mexico City - that by the 1940's was already demonized by the artificial anti-drug hysteria of an opportunistic bureaucracy and a cynical, prostrate media.  - Bookshop Apocalypse