Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

A couple weeks ago the Wizard behind the curtain at RealityStudio sent me an email alerting me to a proof copy of Dead Fingers Talk offered by Ken Lopez. As Lopez’s catalog description makes clear, this is a highly desirable book. Try finding a proof copy of a Burroughs title before the 1970s. It is hard to do for reasons I will get into later. Dead Fingers Talk is one of my favorite Burroughs titles and one of the prides of my book collection. It would seem to be a no-brainer that this unusual item would get my blood racing. Nope. A complete flat line. I would say I hate proofs and all their relations but that would give them too much credit. Instead proofs do something worse than inspire my ire. They bore me.

As a book-collecting term, the word proof is thrown around quite loosely so I am going to define my terms for those who do not know what uncorrected proofs, galleys, advanced reading copies and review copies are. Quite simply a proof is a trial impression. A test run before the larger final run is printed. There are many levels to this term but here are the main ones courtesy of the book collectors’ glossary at Alibris. If you are interested you should go to the Alibris website and spend some quality time with the glossary. Many of the terms have images along with them that are very instructive.

So here goes:

Proofs: Traditionally, a printed trial-run of the work, bound or unbound, which is used for proofreading and to determine if changes need to be made in the text. The typical publishing process is proof, advanced reading copy, and publication. However, bound proofs are also used for pre-publication publicity and are often sent out in place of advance reading copies to booksellers and reviewers. Also known as galley, galley proof, page proof, and uncorrected proof.

Galley: The earliest printing of a work used by the proofreader and author to check for errors. Galleys are often printed on long continuous strips of paper. Sometimes the term is used interchangeably, although incorrectly, with the term advanced reading copy. Also known as galley proof.

Advanced Reading Copy or ARC: A preview or early review copy of a book that is usually sent to book buyers, reviewers, booksellers, book clubs, and/or publisher sales representatives before the book is published. It could be in a different format, uncorrected, not bound, and/or have a different cover design than the publication issue. The typical publishing process is proof, advance reading copy, and publication.

Review Copy: A copy of a book sent out for review by the publisher to the press, booksellers, and others in order to attract attention to the publication. Frequently review copies will have slips of paper inserted into the book, or have it written on the cover, announcing it as a review copy. Textbook review copies are also known as “desk copies” or “instructor copies” and are given to instructors to review for consideration for adoption of the regular edition.

There is a robust book-collecting market for all this stuff. The basic reason for this is that collectors are obsessed with getting as close to the author as possible. Collectors prize the original. They are in constant search for a book’s beginnings, its source — whatever that is. The proof allows a collector to go along the chain of composition that ultimately leads back to the manuscript. Or even further. The joke goes that what collectors really want is a writer’s DNA. In the mid-1960s, book artist Eleanor Antin touched on this with her book: Blood of a Poet Box. This work gathered the blood of 100 poets on slides and packaged them in a specimen box. At the same time, Ed Sanders captured the madness of book collecting in typical Fuck You fashion by gathering pubic hair from poets like Allen Ginsberg and offering them for sale in a Peace Eye catalog.

Collectors also covet rarity. The one of a kind. The unique. Proofs are generally limited in number and thus in the book-collecting market more valuable. Ken Lopez wrote an essay on proofs that lays out the argument for why you should collect proofs in much more detail. It is interesting reading.

I have read this essay more than once as well as talked with collectors who champion proofs. I just cannot get on board with this mentality. Let me be the first to say that my prejudice against proofs might be very narrow-minded if not downright stupid. Case in point is an uncorrected proof copy of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Years ago I found a copy of this proof in a $1 bin outside an independent bookstore. This was around the time the book came out, and the bookstore may have gotten the proof as part of a promotion. Little Brown, the book’s publisher, printed about 500 uncorrected proofs of what proved to be Wallace’s defining novel. It just so happened that as part of promoting Infinite Jest Wallace signed many of the proofs, if not all of them. I bought the book with the idea of flipping it for a few bucks. I eventually sold it for $100. A hefty profit. Given Wallace’s suicide, the book is now about $1000.

I can say with certainty that I never would have gotten rid of a first edition Infinite Jest, signed or unsigned, and I would never, even in today’s more active Wallace market, sell a first edition of that book. But the copy I had was a proof, and I just have no interest in proofs. That lack of passion made the book expendable to me despite that fact that even in 1996 I was interested in Wallace and valued his work.

A diligent book collector can find ARCs and review copies of books lying in bargain bins all the time. The Strand in New York City has thousands of them. As Lopez makes clear, the dynamic of the proof market changed around 1978. Proofs became much more common after that date and an important part of corporate book promotion. Let me tell you it is a real drag digging through all this publishing slag. In my opinion most uncorrected proofs are basically the waste material of the mainstream publishers. But sometimes you get lucky and find something interesting and maybe even valuable.

What is the reason for this aversion to proofs? Why does a proof of Dead Fingers Talk fail to get my heart racing? Lopez touches on one reason in his essay. Proofs are ugly. Ugly isn’t quite the right word. Boring. Proofs are boring. On a visual level. Let’s look at Dead Fingers Talk, because it is a perfect example of why I like first editions and disrespect proofs. Compare the plain green wrapper of the proof with the dust jacket of the first edition. In my opinion the dust jacket for Dead Fingers Talk is one of the best in the entire Burroughs bibliography. I absolutely love it. The photo of Burroughs on the back cover is one of my favorites. I like the dust jacket on a design and layout level but I like even better its referentiality and sense of history. Dead Finger Talk collects selections of all the Olympia Press Burroughs titles into one text (by cutting out the sex). The jacket reflects this with the images of the Olympia dust jackets on the cover. Ian Sommerville created that image by manipulating individual photographs of the covers into smaller denser reproductions. This photo experiment ties in with the cut-up and tape recording experiments that obsessed Burroughs throughout the 1960s. The cover also has a sense of biography. The hand refers to Burroughs’ own dead finger that he cut off in a Van Gogh kick over Jack Anderson.

It could be argued that the plain green wrapper of the Dead Fingers Talk proof conjures up images of the plain brown wrapper used for shipping pornography or the infamous green wrappers of Olympia Press. In addition there might be a tenuous link between the Dead Fingers Talk proof and Ad Reinhardt’s Black Paintings or Yves Klein’s monochromes. Interestingly in 1963, Burroughs’ cut-ups were appearing in an art world context that included Klein’s work. Unfortunately I don’t think proofs work in this way. Proofs may be earlier than first editions but they do not match a first edition’s historicity and referentiality. So proofs do not look good and on top of that what visuals they do have, have nothing to say. If you are ugly you better be able to strike up a conversation.

Admittedly there is a certain less-is-more appeal to proofs. In the case of classic mimeo like Floating Bear, the early Intrepid, or TISH, I feel the pull of this minimalism strongly. I do not with proofs. The reason for this is that I get a sense of the handmade, do-it-yourself spirit from mimeo that I do not get from proofs. I equate proofs with the mechanisms of the mainstream publishing industry. You almost never see proofs, review copies, galleys and the like from the small presses of the Mimeo Revolution.

This type of stuff does exist on some level in the small press world. The Joseph Zinnato Burroughs collection contained an archive related to the publication of Time. Stephen Gertz writes, “And so here was the original issue of Time magazine Burroughs used with all the spaces where text had been cut-out; a 26-page signed, typed manuscript with corrections in his hand; another draft, a 14-page typed manuscript with autograph corrections; an 11-page typed manuscript / collage with title page; a 12-page photo-negative of the prior item with extra drawings and highlighting by Joe Brainard; a 32-page small mock-up of the book in ink by Brainard; the cover as prepared by Burroughs with art by Gysin; the publisher’s ledger/account book with production costs, orders to whom and how many; and over 100 pieces of mail concerning ordering and publication, including the copyright certificate, and the complete list of where copies of the 1-10 edition and 1-100 edition were sold, providing a remarkable insight into the marketing of the book.” This type of stuff is incredible to me and is valuable in financial and scholarly terms. The ultimate would be an archive like this surrounding the publication of the Olympia Naked Lunch. I would love to see galleys and proofs from that period since such information would help solidify the history of the book’s publication, which has been shrouded in mystery for decades.

Forget about the concepts of primacy or rarity, the true value of proofs and their brethren lies for me on a purely academic and scholarly level. A few years ago, Skyline Books had a review copy of On the Road as well as a proof copy. The proof would have some interest to me in that it would help establish the publishing history of Kerouac’s masterpiece, which like Naked Lunch has been the subject of much conjecture. Unfortunately proof material of this level of importance is out of the range of the common collector. The On the Road proof clocked in at $55,000. Most proofs with authorial edits are, like manuscripts, already in institutions and are out of the reach of any collector no matter their bank account. Those that do trickle down to rare booksellers are prohibitively expensive and are also on par monetarily with manuscript material. For example, Royal Books has the galley proofs for Dashiell Hammett’s The Dain Curse with authorial edits for $80,000.

Lopez’s copy of Dead Fingers Talk could fall into the scholarly category. Like Naked Lunch, not much is known about how Dead Fingers Talk was edited and put together. The book is largely forgotten and remains to be studied. It is an assemblage and, as such, a proof captures the spirit of the book’s construction. In addition this proof might actually contain material that was excised from the final published version. Lopez’s copy provides a great opportunity to see what passed the censor at various stages of the book’s editing. As Ken Lopez makes clear in his essay, these additions and deletions make proofs extremely desirable. Completists must have them as they represent another version of the novel. By and large the majority of proofs you see on the rare book market are promotional in nature and do not vary greatly (besides grammatical changes) from the final novel. There are exceptions to this, possibly such as this copy of Dead Fingers Talk, that make proofs an exciting and rewarding proposition.

Although I have very few of them, a review copy can grab my attention. The reason has nothing to do with rarity or an obsession with getting in touch with the author. The interest of review copies lies solely with the ephemera that sometimes accompany them. These press releases comprised of blurbs, release dates, and background information are sometimes fascinating and revealing about how a book was marketed or prepared for popular or critical reception. In the case of Burroughs, topics of this type are extremely important. I have written about the ephemera surrounding the Olympia Press and Grove Press Burroughs titles elsewhere. Give me a catalog or promotional booklet over an advanced reading copy any day.

For the most part the ARC, review copy, or proof that is obtainable by the average collector has no scholarly importance. Instead they are by-products of the corporate publishing world and are, in my mind, artificial rarities. They are merely the promotional tools of the large publishers. The literary equivalent of cosmetic samples. A Burroughs proof highlights for me his move into the mainstream corporate publishing world. Exterminator! and the late trilogy (or any book that was part of that 6-book deal) would all have review copies or proofs. These items capture not so much Burroughs’ move away from experimental writing but his move from the active experimental community exemplified by small presses and little magazines.

You just do not see review copies, ARCs or proofs in my area of interest: the publishers of the Mimeo Revolution. These books and magazines were rarely reviewed and if they were, it was by writers or artists associated with the magazine. At the opposite end of the corporate publishers’ distribution of review copies is the mailing list distribution of a mimeo. Anybody getting a copy of Semina or Floating Bear was already in the circle. There was no need or desire for promotion. In addition, small presses do not have the resources to run off 500 uncorrected proofs to give away to distributors or reviewers. If a mimeo or small press ran a proof it was probably one copy done to actually test the quality of a probably broken down press. This proof was then put in a publisher’s archive to be marketed to a library or institution or more likely it was destroyed. So Ken Lopez is right to trumpet the rarity of a Dead Fingers Talk proof. They are very rare before, let’s say, Exterminator! Even review copies of the Grove titles of the 1960s are extremely unusual. Olympia Press sent review copies of Naked Lunch out to interested parties but almost all of those books were seized at customs and never made it into the United States. The Dead Fingers Talk proof, despite coming from Calder / Olympia Press, is tainted with unsavory associations. The uncorrected proof or the ARC is symbolic of the bloated bureaucracy and commercial, mass consumer nature of corporate publishing.

Book collecting is a very personal affair. Building a book collection is as much about what you exclude as what you include. Looking at what is and is not on a collector’s shelf can reveal a lot about his prides (the first edition of Dead Fingers Talk) and his prejudices (the proof of Dead Fingers Talk).

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

The Third Mind images from Paris are not the only goodies we have received from our readers. Chris Hughes, a reader from Scotland, forwarded me some scans from a program for the Edinburgh Festival of 1962. 2007 marked the 45th anniversary of the 1962 Festival that in essence established Burroughs’ reputation as a writer on an international level. In that year, John Calder decided to add an International Writers’ Conference to the Festival’s many activities. Ted Morgan’s Literary Outlaw, the best of the Burroughs biographies, provides all the details. Barry Miles’ bio, which is strong on the cut-up and other multimedia aspects of Burroughs’ career, fails to mention the 1962 Conference. This might be because Morgan did such a thorough job of it. According to the Festival’s current website, “[t]he Festival began in 1947, with the aim of providing ‘a platform for the flowering of the human spirit.'” This platform continues to the present. In 2008, the Festival will run from August 8th to August 31.

I do not want to rehash the story of the 1962 Conference here, but I do want to provide readers of RealityStudio with some of the primary documents related to this event. According to the Maynard and Miles bibliography, a mimeograph transcript of the Conference exists. This publication documents the panel discussions that transpired over the five days of August 20th to 24th. The number of copies is unknown, and I have never seen one available for sale. Burroughs appears on pages 5-8, 18-19, 29, 32-33. These sections contain Burroughs’ statements at the panel on Censorship (Thursday August 23rd) and The Future of the Novel (Friday August 24th).

Given the rarity of this publication, I never considered the fact that other ephemera from the Festival and the Conference might exist. But as Chris Hughes’ scans show, such ephemera do in fact exist, and as I found out, they are available. These documents tell an interesting story. I think Hughes’ scans show the program for the entire Festival. He has been good enough to include John Calder’s essay on The Writer’s Conference as well as the schedule for Calder’s brainchild. Interestingly, in Calder’s essay, Burroughs is not listed as one of the delegates from the United States. This shows just how far off the radar screen Burroughs was before the Conference. In hindsight, Burroughs seems like the perfect choice for the panels on censorship and the future of the novel. The obscenity trials surrounding Big Table made Burroughs an expert on censorship. The development of the cut-up and the publication of Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded (not to mention Naked Lunch) made him an authority on the future of the novel. That said virtually nobody at the conference knew who he was. Not surprising really. For the most part, Burroughs was only published by Olympia Press. In all probability, nobody would have read Junkie to say nothing of the small press gems of Minutes to Go (Two Cities) and The Exterminator (Auerhahn Press). In August 1962, Barney Rosset of Grove Press stored copies of Naked Lunch in a warehouse. He was waiting to see how Grove Press’ other censorship battles played out. The book would not be available in the United States until November 1962. The publicity and discussion generated by the International Writer’s Conference in large part assured the book’s release. Naked Lunch would not be available in Great Britain until 1964.

In any case, Burroughs was something of an afterthought for inclusion at the Conference. Calder did not invite Burroughs until summer was already in full swing. Burroughs had to pay his own way, and he did not have a sponsor. In essence he tagged along with Maurice Girodias who attended the censorship panel. At the Conference, Burroughs spent most of his time with Alex Trocchi, the author of Cain’s Book. In fact, Burroughs stayed with Trocchi at Trocchi’s doctor, who no doubt filled scripts all week. This was the first meeting of the two partners in crime. Not surprisingly, Burroughs considered Cain’s Book a major work of drug literature. Calder was actively promoting Trocchi at the time. After the Conference, Calder would do the same for Burroughs.

The program for the Edinburgh Festival supplied by Chris Hughes got me thinking about what else is out there. I remembered John Calder’s autobiography that was sent to me by our correspondent Robert Bank. This book is an essential source on the Writers’ Conference. It includes a description of yet another bit of memorabilia, the Program and Notes for the International Writer’s Conference entitled “The Novel Today.” I never put two and two together. I failed to realize that this program might be available on the rare book market. I guess I got this publication confused with the impossible to find transcript. In addition the two programs available here on RealityStudio are not in the two main Burroughs bibliographies. Some quick searching located a copy of “The Novel Today” right in my backyard. Serendipity!!

About the program, Calder writes, “The conference program, which was really a lavishly produced literary magazine, partly produced on art paper, but with a central section on grey cartridge, gave two lists: a longer one with short biographies of participants and photographs of everyone who had accepted, which was prepared well in advance on white art and a last-minute list, very different, but still incomplete, on grey. The latter section apologized for the inconsistencies and changes, but also gave a longish description of each day’s topic and what was expected to happen, as well as listing the principal speakers for those days.” Burroughs appears in the “last-minute” list as befits his last-minute invitation by Calder. Burroughs is also listed as a participant in the censorship discussion. Not surprising given his publishing history up to that point. What is shocking is that Burroughs was not heavily promoted as a member of the future of the novel panel. Burroughs’ discussion of the cut-up at this panel would prove to be one of the highlights of the Conference and would cause a major stir.

So what did Burroughs say? Literary Outlaw provides some brief quotes, but the best source, besides the mimeographed transcript, is issue 11 of Transatlantic Review from the winter of 1962. Burroughs opens the magazine in its text and headlines on its cover. Clearly he was big news. Issue 11 prints the two statements Burroughs read at the Conference at the panels on censorship and the future of the novel. In addition, Burroughs wrote a cut-up based on the events that occurred at McEwan Hall (the location of the Conference). As is common with Burroughs’ cut-ups of this period, the piece included detailed notes regarding its composition. Parts of it have been collected in The Third Mind and Word Virus, but RealityStudio is putting it online as part of its collection of documents relating to the conference.

Unlike some of the anniversaries that have been celebrated surrounding the Beats in the last couple of years, the 45th Anniversary of the International Writer’s Conference in Edinburgh passed under the radar. This is somewhat ironic since it was after his appearance at McEwan Hall that Burroughs became headline fodder around the world. The Conference directly led to the release of Naked Lunch in the United States and to the publication of a Burroughs novel in Great Britain (Dead Fingers Talk in 1963). In addition, the discussion at the Conference helped legitimize Burroughs as a serious author and helped prove that Burroughs was more than a pornographer. It was in Edinburgh that Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer stood firmly behind Naked Lunch and its author. This support would prove useful for the upcoming obscenity trial that engulfed Naked Lunch in Boston soon after its release in late 1962. For Burroughs lovers, this is certainly something to remember and to celebrate. Hopefully, the primary documents available here on RealityStudio provide a means to do just that.

1962 International Writers Conference Ticket

1962 International Writers Conference Ticket

1962 Edinburgh International Festival Souvenir Program

1962 Edinburgh International Festival Souvenir Program
Front

1962 Edinburgh International Festival Souvenir Program
“The Writers’ Conference” by John Calder

1962 Edinburgh International Festival Souvenir Program
McEwan Hall Agenda

1962 International Writers Conference Program (Excerpt)

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Front

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day One: Contrasts of Approach

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day Two: Scottish Writing Today

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day Three: Commitment

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day Four: Censorship

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day Five: The Novel and the Future

1962 International Writers Conference Program
List of Delegates

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Back

1962 International Writers Conference News Clippings

Authors Fail to Arrive
21 August 1962

The Writers’ Conference by W.J. Weatherby
22 August 1962

A Letter from Alan Paton by W.J. Weatherby
23 August 1962

Writers’ Conference by W.J. Weatherby
24 August 1962

Sex and So On at Edinburgh

Writers’ Conference by W.J. Weatherby

Encounter Magazine

Stephen Spender
Letter from Edinburgh
Encounter Magazine
October 1962

Stephen Spender
Letter from Edinburgh
Encounter Magazine
October 1962

Stephen Spender
Letter from Edinburgh
Encounter Magazine
October 1962

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Much has been made of the imperiled state of the print publishing industry. Just this weekend I read a review of a large format art book entitled The Last Magazine. Everywhere you look there is an article on the future of the ebook or the death of print. The mainstream publishers are on life support. The small press lacks adequate distribution systems. Meanwhile, fledgling writers cannot get their books into print, mid-list writers are getting squeezed out of the shelves, and the blockbuster authors hold the fate of the large publishers in their hands as they put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). Countless literary blogs bemoan the closing of another independent bookshop. As an email from Robert Bank, subject headed “Disaster!,” informed me, there is another potential nail in the coffin.

The legendary John Calder is in danger of completely shutting up shop. In fact for years, he has curtailed his publishing activities, and his backlist and business operations are in a state of disorganization. Like so many mavericks — I am thinking of Maurice Girodias here, but there are several others — the sense of taste, the desire to upset the status quo, the daring in the face of censorship, the love of fine and experimental literature that make a great publisher do not translate into a financially successful businessman.

Rare is the publisher like John Martin of Black Sparrow who combines sound business acumen with exceptional literary sensibility. But even Martin could not run Black Sparrow forever and larger publishing entities (Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins) stepped in to take over the Bukowski, Bowles and Fante titles. This sale allowed Martin to structure a deal to keep the backlist of Black Sparrow available as well.

Has the Black Sparrow arrangement been valuable for all involved (publisher, writer and reader)? I do not know, but Calder, like Martin, has gathered together a stable of writers to which the reading public should demand access. Calder should be rewarded for the foresight and bravery of getting these writers into print. Like Barney Rosset at Grove and Girodias at Olympia Press, Calder opened British borders and Britons’ minds with publications that challenged the censors and the intellect. Some eighty percent of Samuel Beckett’s output is on the Calder list. Like the Bukowski line at Black Sparrow, it looks like a larger publisher, in this case Faber, will come in and make this work available. What about the other writers published by Calder? Could the proceeds of this sale allow Calder to continue his business or make arrangements like John Martin? Calder published and in some cases holds copyright to Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute, Hubert Selby, Henry Miller, Eugene Ionesco, and Henrich Boll. Of additional interest to readers of RealityStudio, Calder brought William Burroughs to British shores, published Alexander Trocchi’s Cain’s Book, and holds the rights to various works of Jeff Nuttall.

In the Times article, Calder states, “I am a great believer in chance… Something might come up, to keep us going.” Hopefully so. Calder also states, “I don’t think there’s ever been such a philistine era.” Maybe so. Clearly, there is a crisis in print culture at every level. Print is in a time of remarkable flux and change, maybe as sweeping as that of its birth in the mid-1400s with Gutenberg. I do not know what is going to happen and given all that I have read in books, magazines, and the Web or have heard in conversation at bookstores, libraries, and lectures, I do not think anybody else does either. Clearly, the history of Calder as a publisher and the current precarious position of his titles and his store are a major part of the story at every level.

I would like to celebrate the legacy of Calder in the only way I know how by writing a little about my favorite Burroughs titles published by his company. In previous columns, I have written about Calder’s immense importance to Burroughs as well as the pleasures of the British firsts. So bear with me if I cover some of the same ground and at the same time fail to provide a more complete look at Calder’s relationship with Burroughs or the history of Calder as a publisher.

As a matter of personal taste, I much prefer the paperback firsts of Burroughs over the hardcovers. I return again and again to the Ace and Digit Junkies, the Two Cities Minutes to Go, Auerhahn’s The Exterminator. Give me the Olympia Press titles over the Grove counterparts. The Calder editions of Burroughs’ work are in some cases an exception to that rule. Calder’s hardcover of Soft Machine is not one of those efforts unfortunately. Quite possibly, this edition is my least favorite Burroughs hardcover. It is the most boring design-wise. But don’t judge a book by its cover, because as the discussion forum makes clear, Burroughs heavily revised Soft Machine from Olympia Press to Grove to Calder. As a result, the British edition is invaluable and a must-have.

Much more interesting on a visual level is the Calder Ticket That Exploded hardcover. This is a very pleasing title and the fact that my copy is inscribed by Burroughs to his British agent at the time makes it more so. Unlike Soft Machine, the British Ticket reprints the Grove edition without further edits. So what lies between the covers proves less interesting to those who possess the American edition. Even so, the cover art that hints in basic design to the Grove dust jacket makes the British first a desirable object.

Dead Fingers Talk published by Calder in boards in 1963 is one of my favorite books soft or hardcover. I find the dust jacket to be stunning. The front reproduces the Olympia Press covers in a montage by Ian Somerville. The manipulation of images by Somerville (reproduction and reduction of the jacket covers into a mosaic of a larger image) parallels the tape experiments of the Beat Hotel period and beyond. The photo of Burroughs on the back cover is haunting, the very representation of el Hombre Invisible. I love the disembodied hand across the cover that bring to my mind Burroughs’s Van Gogh act of the early 1940s when he cut off his finger in an act of desperation and passion.

To my understanding, Dead Fingers Talk is an assemblage of the Olympia Press titles under one cover. Calder issued the book after the international coming-out party of the Edinburgh Writers Conference of 1962 in order to capitalize on Burroughs’ celebrity and to prepare the way for Naked Lunch. Contrary to popular belief, the UGH correspondence in the Times Literary Supplement developed in response to the publication of Dead Fingers Talk, not Naked Lunch. To my great embarrassment, I have never read Dead Fingers Talk since even the 1970s reprint I have is not a true reading copy. Why has this largely unknown title by Burroughs fallen out of print for so long and to my knowledge never been made available in the United States? Hopefully, Calder or another entity will reissue it again in an affordable paperback in Britain and abroad. Secondhand, I have heard that Dead Fingers Talk differs from its original sources, but others have told me that it is a simple cut and paste job. I would like to experience it for myself.

Dead Fingers Talk bears the Calder and Olympia Press imprint. Throughout the fifties and sixties, Olympia Press introduced numerous authors of the Calder and Grove stables first. Olympia Press pornography encompassed some of the best outlaw writing on sex, drugs, and the emerging counterculture. Grove repeatedly reissued the Olympia Press list and Calder did too, most notably with Beckett and Burroughs. As I mentioned above, Girodias, Calder, and Rosset are the three amigos of independent publishing to me. Not only their publications overlap, their personal histories possess many similarities as well.

Every book collection has gaping holes: the empty spaces in the bookshelf waiting for the presently unobtainable, but desperately desired, book. A signed British first of Naked Lunch (1964) is one such title. It is possibly the most obvious gap in my collection. Like Dead Fingers Talk, the Calder (again in association with Olympia Press) Naked Lunch is a visually arresting title, due to the spectral visage of Burroughs on the front cover. The cut-out of Burroughs refers to the cut-up and the red eyes present Burroughs as demonic. The eyes remind me of the Norman Mailer quote that Burroughs was the only American author possessed by genius. The idea of demonic possession threads through Burroughs’ work and his literary theories, most notably and tragically in the introduction to Queer involving the Ugly Spirit.

I love the look of this book even if its white dust jacket makes getting a crisp, bright copy a tough order. I haven’t lacked the opportunity although signed copies hover at the $1000 mark and in some distressing cases double that amount. Unsigned copies are much more common and lately a copy with a wraparound band popped up on eBay. I was unaware of the band, but such added touches are not unheard-of in Burroughs’ publishing history. The Two Cities edition of Minutes to Go should have a wraparound band. Some copies of the Grove Naked Lunch possessed bands as well stating “Recommended for Sale to Adults Only.” These ephemeral pieces are usually torn or even worse missing altogether, ripped apart and thrown in the trash in the process of reading the book.

For much of Calder’s fifty years in publishing, Burroughs has been a defining presence on the maverick publisher’s catalog. Yet this should never be considered a one-sided relationship. Calder was instrumental in introducing Burroughs to a larger audience that extended beyond Great Britain. The Edinburgh Writers’ Conference made Burroughs an international celebrity and Calder continued to champion Burroughs’s work on the world stage from that point on. At one point, Calder nominated Burroughs for the Nobel Prize. If Burroughs would have won such an honor or if he was even seriously considered, the faith and dedication of the fearless Scotsman would have been one of the major reasons why.

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

There were a couple of interesting signed books for sale on eBay last week that gets to the heart of what makes a particular book collectible. A 1963 John Calder Dead Fingers Talk sold for about $160 (ebay, PDF) and a Grove Ticket That Exploded sold for $202 (ebay, PDF). Both books attracted double digit bids. My gut reaction was that I was very surprised by these prices. Dead Fingers Talk is definitely the rarer book especially signed. In 2001, this exact copy of Dead Fingers Talk sold at auction in California for $316. From rare book dealers, signed copies can run $300-$450. A few years ago one could find a signed Grove Ticket That Exploded for $150-200 with $250 being top dollar. That has changed recently as signed Groves are now up to $400 and more on abebooks. What can explain the decline of the Dead Fingers Talk at this eBay auction?

The high price on the Grove and the low price on the Dead Fingers Talk on eBay may relate back to the signatures on each book. The Grove has what looks to be a tight, contemporary signature possibly from the late 1960’s although it is undated. The Dead Fingers Talk has a very loose, late signature dated from March 1997. Early Burroughs signatures are more highly prized than the looser, late signature. As Burroughs got older and more famous, he signed much more often, thus making the later signatures more common and less desirable. It was not uncommon for book collectors and dealers to make the pilgrimage to Lawrence in the 1990’s with arms full of rare or not so rare edition for Burroughs to sign.

For example, the signatures of the Nelson Lyon collection that sold in 1999 (widely considered one of the major Burroughs auctions of the last 20 years) was full of late signatures. The appeal of the Lyon collection was that any of these incredibly rare magazines were signed at all. Apparently given the numbers of late signatures out there, Burroughs willingly signed in his later years. For me, the later signatures are not as visually pleasing as well as more common. As Burroughs got older, he began dating his signatures; many of the signatures from the 1960’s and 1970’s are undated. I have never seen a signature from the 1950’s although I have heard of signed copies of the “Letter from a Master Addict” offprint from 1957 being for sale. I own a signed copy of the 1960 Minutes to Go that was in all probability signed at a book signing party in 1960. That signature is very different from the later signatures that I own. In my opinion, the Grove Ticket did very well on eBay due to the quality of the signature. The Dead Fingers Talk underperformed due to the shaky, late signature. I would expect the values to change dramatically if the signatures were switched.

The Dead Fingers Talk is the more desirable book. Dead Fingers Talk is the coolest first edition hardcover available to the Burroughs collector. In a publishing history dominated by incredible paperback editions like the Olympia Press titles, the Ace and Digit Junkies, Time, Minutes to Go, APO-33 and The Exterminator, Burroughs’ Dead Fingers Talk holds its own on a visual level. This may be because the Dead Fingers Talk dust jacket refers back to all the great Olympia Press dust jackets. The title of the book refers to the line “Only dead fingers talk in Braille” from Naked Lunch. The imprint of the mangled hand over the front cover also adds to the dust jacket’s appeal. The cover slyly references Burroughs’ Van Gogh act of his youth, when he cut off his finger to impress a crush. The icing on the cake is the fantastic photo of Burroughs on the back of the dust jacket where he looks particularly spectral and menacing: a fitting mug shot for a literary outlaw.

Besides looking good, Dead Fingers Talk is pretty hard to find. Many people do not even know the book existed. The book was published in late 1963 in an edition of 4,000 copies. Although the book was issued in paperback throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, it has been out of print for quite awhile, so not many people have actually read it. That includes me. Horrible to say, but my hardcover copy is too nice to actually read. This is one of the downfalls of being an obsessive book collector. It is difficult to fully enjoy all one’s books. Over the years, I have never happened upon a readable paperback copy. I would be interested in hearing from anybody about what Dead Fingers Talk is like. I have heard differing opinions. Some describe it as a mere cut and paste of the Olympia titles and other proclaim it a totally different novel altogether. In any case, the Naked Lunch material appeared in a different order than the Olympia Press edition thus adding to the legend that Naked Lunch was collated on the fly by Burroughs, Gysin and Sinclair Beiles.

Dead Fingers Talk is interesting on a historical level as well. (See wikipedia on Dead Fingers Talk. John Calder, the avant garde British publisher, issued Dead Fingers Talk as a Burroughs reader to prepare and introduce the British public to the shocking nature of Naked Lunch which had yet to be published in Great Britain. The book capitalized on the recent international fame of Burroughs generated by the 1962 International Writers Conference held in Edinburgh. The book contains pieces of all the Olympia Press titles: Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, as well as new material. Needless to say, Dead Fingers Talk created a stir. For an astounding 13 weeks, letters both praising and damning the novel appeared in the Times Literary Supplement. John Willett got the ball rolling with a negative review of Burroughs’ work simply titled “Ugh!” Edith Sitwell, Michael Moorcock, Victor Gollancz, Anthony Burgess, and Eric Mottram all got into the act on both sides of the argument. The book generated just the right kind of controversy, i.e. not the legal kind associated with obscenity or censorship, for John Calder to issue Naked Lunch in 1964. By 1964, Naked Lunch swept the Western world and began to redefine the boundaries of literary art. In 1982, Calder reissued Naked Lunch with all 56 pages of the Ugh Correspondence.

The Grove Press edition of The Ticket That Exploded does not have the same historical importance or aesthetic appeal. In addition, this edition was issued in a run of 10,000 copies making it far more common. I do not want to downplay the Grove Ticket That Exploded too much. It is heavily revised from the Olympia Press edition and includes the major statement “The Invisible Generation” taken from Burroughs’ contributions to the British underground newspaper The International Times. Clearly, the Grove Ticket is a monumental text in its own right, but as a collector I would much prefer to have a signed Dead Fingers Talk in my library. That said, I would, like many eBay buyers, shy away from a late Burroughs signature. The mystery remains why a desirable collectible like Dead Fingers Talk would fail to hold its value a mere five years after a documented sale. One would tend to worry about the Burroughs market if it was not for the strong showing by the Grove Ticket That Exploded. Possibly the lesson to be learned here is that just having a signed book is not enough. It also matters when that book was signed.

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

A recent post mentioned the Edinburgh Beat scene. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, William Burroughs appeared in several Scottish literary magazines and made a memorable appearance at the International Writers Conference in Edinburgh. I have often wondered why Scotland was a hotbed for Burroughs and why he appeared in Scottish literary magazines so early in his publishing history.

In 1959, Burroughs contributed “And Start West” to Jabberwock magazine. Jabberwock was printed in Edinburgh. This section opens Naked Lunch beginning “I can feel the heat closing in” and ending “So we stock up on H, buy a second hand Studebaker and start west.” The Restored Naked Lunch returns the title (“And Start West”) to the opening section. In previous versions like the Olympia Press or Grove editions, there was no opening heading. I assume that the piece in Jabberwock is the first section of Naked Lunch. I have never seen a copy of Jabberwock and I know next to nothing about it. Early in the 20th Century, Jabberwock was the name of a London-based monthly magazine for children. Possibly, the editors of the new venture were aware of this and meant their magazine to be a literary magazine for young hipsters. I dimly recall Jabberwock being a spin off of a University publication that ran afoul with the board of directors à la Big Table, but I could be confusing this with another Scottish magazine mentioned later: Cleft. Anybody with more information on Jabberwock, please pass it along. It was not the only literary magazine in Edinburgh publishing the Beats.

In 1960, Alex Neish published William Burroughs in Sidewalk Issue 2. Burroughs contributed “Have You Seen Slotless City?” from the still in progress Soft Machine. Jennie Skerl has this to say about the image of Slotless City: “Slotless City is a futuristic fantasy of violence and chaos produced by sexual conflict. Through insoluble conflict the Nova Mob seeks to destroy the earth, and the Slotless City fantasy envisions sexual conflict as the cause of a future apocalypse. This narrative portrays science-fiction methods of reproduction in a society in which men and women are at war, leading to the creation of fantastic new life forms fighting with each other for existence, and ending with the destruction of all life on earth. The final apocalypse is conveyed in ambiguous cutup imagery. It is unclear whether the destruction is positive or negative, a victory for the Mob or for the Police, for the disintegration of present reality structures is a form of liberation from control.”

The editorial comment to Sidewalk sheds some light on why Burroughs was included in the magazine. In 1960, Scottish postal authorities seized a copy of Francis Pollini’s Night published by Olympia Press. The book was burned and poet Hugh MacDiarmid was questioned (the book was sent to him in the mail) by police. As a result, obscenity and censorship were hot topics in literary Scotland. Burroughs recently published by Olympia Press was a poster child for censorship issues as proven by the problems concerning Big Table and postal authorities in Chicago.

In addition in April 1960, Burroughs moved briefly to London. Having just escaped a jail sentence in France concerning a drug bust and fearing deportation, Burroughs needed to get away from the Beat Hotel. He lived at the Empress Hotel in London working quietly on Soft Machine. Dr. Dent’s apomorphine cure was nearby and so was Ian Sommerville who Burroughs met in the summer of 1959. It was at the Empress Hotel that Mikey Portman knocked on Burroughs’ door. Earlier in 1958, Burroughs visited Oxford to see Michael Horovitz and David Sladen as suggested by Allen Ginsberg. As a result, two sections of Naked Lunch appeared in the first issue of New Departures magazine in 1959. A similar situation occurred in 1960. The appearance in Sidewalk can be explained by Burroughs’ presence in Great Britain coupled with the censorship issues. Yet larger forces were also at play.

Sidewalk created quite a stir and was part of a larger cultural phenomenon happening in Scotland. In the early 1960s, Scottish culture was incredibly provincial as was Scottish literature. Poets and writers often wrote in Scottish dialect and dealt in age-old Scottish themes handed down from Robert Burns. Social class and authority were respected and protected. Scottish poet Edwin Morgan appeared in Sidewalk 2. Morgan was one of the major forces in Scottish poetry and literary innovation. In a talk on the Scottish Left, he describes the swirl of activity happening in Scotland at the time of Burroughs’ arrival in London and thereafter. Morgan states: “In the Sixties, there was an atmosphere, an excitement, a sense of liberation, of potentialities, of boundaries being crossed, which came from a great variety of things outside Scotland — the music of Bob Dylan and the Beatles, a new explosion of poetry and prose in America with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, a new generation of poets in Russia with Yevtushenko and Voznesensky, the beginnings of space exploration, the international growth off the idea of a counter-culture. All this was reflected in Scotland, to the surprise of not a few observers.”

When Sidewalk appeared in Edinburgh, there were complaints about its American title, to say nothing of its contents. A newspaper headline read “EDINBURGH SURRENDERS TO THE BEATS!” Sidewalk 2 also published Robert Creeley and Gary Snyder. Burroughs and the Beats were the first shots across the bow in a culture war that would be waged in the Scottish literary scene and in Scottish society at large in the 1960s. The literary and cultural change in Scotland reflected changes occurring across Europe and the United States. To Scottish artists in search of new freedoms and art, the Beats spoke in a frank, hip language that opened up new experience and a whole international scene.

Given the literary climate in Scotland and Great Britain in general, a need arose for a daring publisher. Great Britain possessed its own anti-censorship, pro-avant-garde publisher along the lines of Barney Rosset and Maurice Girodias. John Calder sought to expand the freedom of the press through the same plan of action used in France and the United States. Calder took literary works of high quality that deal with taboo or daring topics in a frank, explicit manner, like The Ginger Man, Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, or Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Naked Lunch fell into that group. Calder was Scottish. Perhaps this explains the presence of Burroughs in Scottish literary magazines at the dawn of the 1960s. It definitely explains Burroughs’ appearance at the International Writers Conference in 1962.

The cultural battle in Scotland as well as the fight to get Naked Lunch in print in Great Britain and the United States played out at the 1962 International Writers Conference held in Edinburgh. The Conference was a major reason for the interest in Burroughs in Great Britain in the early 1960s and would have repercussions throughout the West. Calder sponsored the conference as a means to champion innovative writing as well as to launch a pre-emptive strike against censorship of works like Naked Lunch and Tropic of Cancer. In line with that goal, the American delegation consisted of Mary McCarthy, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller and William Burroughs. For most participants on the panels and in the audience, Burroughs was an unknown commodity. None had heard of Junkie. Few may have heard of Naked Lunch and most were unaware of Burroughs’ new direction, the cut-up, represented by The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, Minutes to Go, and The Exterminator.

The Conference became a media hit. Ted Morgan writes, “[I]t turned into one of those ‘the-lines-are-drawn-and-which-side-are-you-on’ running battles between ‘ancients’ and ‘moderns,’ with various side shows concerning regional and national issues. Calder was gratified to see a paying audience of about 2,500 attending the sessions…” Panels discussed the future of the novel, the contemporary novel form, Scottish writers, the Writer and Commitment, and censorship. Alexander Trocchi, a symbol of new Scotland, debated with Scottish poet Hugh MacDaimad, representative of Scottish tradition. MacDaimand wore a kilt; Trocchi sported track marks. The cut-up and the form of Burroughs’ novels were discussed. Burroughs gave a speech on censorship. Mary McCarthy linked him with Vladimir Nabokov as one of the two most interesting and innovative writers in the contemporary scene. Through it all, Burroughs emerged an international figure.

Literary magazines captured it all. While not based in Scotland, the Transatlantic Review published Burroughs’ pieces from Edinburgh. The support of Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer would appear forever after on blurbs for Burroughs’ novels. More importantly, the quotes supported Rosset’s and Calder’s anti-censorship crusades and served as ammunition for obscenity trials. Mailer testified on behalf of Naked Lunch at the 1965 trial.

In 1924, Transatlantic Review ran for 12 issues. Like transition, the magazine was an English language review based in Paris. Ford Madox Ford, author of The Good Soldier, edited the magazine. It captured the writing and excitement of the Jazz Age in Europe. Most famously, the Review published early pieces by a reporter named Ernest Hemingway. In 1959, the name was revived for a new magazine this time based out of New York and London. This project ran for an impressive 60 issues until June 1977. Burroughs appeared in several issues throughout the 1960s and 1970s alongside mainstream heavyweights like John Updike. From 1962-1964, Burroughs appeared in three issues of Transatlantic Review. Issue 11 printed Burroughs’ contributions to the Writers Conference. “Censorship” was subdivided into four pieces: “Censorship” and “The Future of the Novel” (read at Edinburgh) as well as “Notes on these Pages” and “Nova Police Besieged McEwan Hall.”

Scotland also possessed a burgeoning tradition in drug literature thanks to the life and work of the previously mentioned Alexander Trocchi. Born in Glasgow, Trocchi went to Paris in the early 1950s and started the literary magazine Merlin which helped bring Samuel Beckett to worldwide acclaim. Trocchi also hooked up with Olympia Press writing pornographic novels as well as working on his drug masterpiece: Cain’s Book. Trocchi, like Burroughs, was a heroin addict and his novel, like Junkie, provided an unsparing and even glorified account of heroin. Burroughs considered the novel a rival to Naked Lunch and a classic of drug literature. Thirty years later, Irvine Welsh created another international sensation building on the Scottish tradition of drug literature begun by Cain’s Book. Trainspotting and Welsh’s other works owe a direct debt to Trocchi and even Burroughs. Through example, Trocchi lead a fight against Scottish tradition and became a figurehead of the international avant-garde. Trocchi showed Scotland that great and meaningful literature could step outside national borders and literary boundaries.

In the mid-1960s, Burroughs continued to be featured in the Scottish literary scene. In 1963-1964 in Cleft 1 and 2, Burroughs appeared alongside Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, and Hugh MacDiarmid showing the influence of the Writers Conference two years before. Editor Bill McCarthur started Cleft after University opposition to what had been published in Gambit. Gambit published “The Mayan Caper” in Spring 1963. The theme of radical youth self-publishing morally and technically challenging literature continued in Edinburgh. The story of Big Table, New Departures, and Cleft highlight the slow rise of the youth culture in the late 1950s and early 1960s that would reach full bloom with the flower children, the Summer of Love and Woodstock Nation. Even in the silent decade, radical students existed or were being awakened. These battles against censorship and the fight for freedom of speech/press foreshadowed student movements like the Students for a Democratic Society, the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, and student protest and University occupations throughout the West.

Ian Hamilton Finlay and Edwin Morgan appeared in Cleft 2 which points to another overlapping theme in Burroughs’ Scottish magazine appearances: the international avant-garde, the cut-up and Burroughs the poet. With the cut-up, Burroughs found himself smack in the middle of a newly forming literary and artistic avant-garde. Burroughs’s appearance in Cleft alongside Ian Hamilton Finlay and Edwin Morgan shows Burroughs treading the same terrain as the concrete poets. Finlay and Morgan remain Scotland’s most famous concrete poets. The term was coined in the 1950s and by 1956 an international conference on the subject was held. Concrete poetry is a school of poetry that often focuses on the visual aspect of writing; the visual shape of letters and their placement on the page rather than the content or meaning of language is stressed. Concrete poets also experiment with the sound of words rather than their meaning. Burroughs’ work in this direction in the early 1960s is another reason he appeared in Cleft. Scotland with poets like Finlay and Morgan was a major player in the international concrete poetry scene. Burroughs contributed “Martin’s Folly” to Cleft 1 and “A Distant Hand Lifted” to Cleft 2.

A close look at Burroughs’ literary appearances in Scotland tells much about the cultural ferment in Scotland and the West at large. A Burroughs contribution to a magazine symbolized a blow against censorship, announced participation in the literary avant-garde, sparked media circuses, provided insight into the drug underworld, and ushered in countercultural change. Burroughs in Scotland highlights his importance in the major events and themes of the 1960s throughout the Western world.