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The Naked Archive
Mar. 1st, 2006 01:37 pmN.Y. Library buys Beat writer's archive
Last Updated Wed, 01 Mar 2006 16:22:50 EST
CBC Arts
The New York Public Library has acquired the personal archive of William S. Burroughs, one of the Beat Generation writers who challenged the standards of 1950s America.
Burroughs, who died in 1997, helped compile the archive, which includes unpublished works and correspondence.
The archive includes draft versions of his most famous work, Naked Lunch, a hallucinogenic journey of an addict descending into hell, which was banned in Boston and eventually won a landmark obscenity ruling.
The archive will become part of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature which already holds Jack Kerouac's literary and personal archive.
Burroughs, Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg achieved legendary status as the Beat Generation, writers who rejected the morals and cultural norms of the time. Naked Lunch, published in 1959 in Paris, was notable for its experiment with a fragmented literary style.
In 1962, a court ruled the novel was not pornographic, overturning a ban on sales of the book in many parts of the U.S., and helping to discourage literary censorship.
Burroughs is also author of Junky, The Place of Dead Roads and Queer.
The archive holds more than 11,000 documents, including letters from Kerouac.
"Of the tens of thousands of pages, only literally a handful have ever been seen, and only a very few quoted from," curator Isaac Gewirtz told the Associated Press.
The collection could be made available to researchers next year. The library bought the collection for an undisclosed sum from collectors Robert and Donna Jackson, of Shaker Heights, Ohio.
"My sense is that it will really change the picture of Burroughs that scholars have known," said Oliver Harris, a professor of American literature at Keele University in Staffordshire, England.
Last Updated Wed, 01 Mar 2006 16:22:50 EST
CBC Arts
The New York Public Library has acquired the personal archive of William S. Burroughs, one of the Beat Generation writers who challenged the standards of 1950s America.
Burroughs, who died in 1997, helped compile the archive, which includes unpublished works and correspondence.
The archive includes draft versions of his most famous work, Naked Lunch, a hallucinogenic journey of an addict descending into hell, which was banned in Boston and eventually won a landmark obscenity ruling.
The archive will become part of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature which already holds Jack Kerouac's literary and personal archive.
Burroughs, Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg achieved legendary status as the Beat Generation, writers who rejected the morals and cultural norms of the time. Naked Lunch, published in 1959 in Paris, was notable for its experiment with a fragmented literary style.
In 1962, a court ruled the novel was not pornographic, overturning a ban on sales of the book in many parts of the U.S., and helping to discourage literary censorship.
Burroughs is also author of Junky, The Place of Dead Roads and Queer.
The archive holds more than 11,000 documents, including letters from Kerouac.
"Of the tens of thousands of pages, only literally a handful have ever been seen, and only a very few quoted from," curator Isaac Gewirtz told the Associated Press.
The collection could be made available to researchers next year. The library bought the collection for an undisclosed sum from collectors Robert and Donna Jackson, of Shaker Heights, Ohio.
"My sense is that it will really change the picture of Burroughs that scholars have known," said Oliver Harris, a professor of American literature at Keele University in Staffordshire, England.
