Writing

William Burroughs wrote prolifically from the 1940's til the 1990's, producing dozens of novels, essays, prose, and articles. Throughout his career his writing evolved constantly and spanned many styles and genres. His singular voice is evident through all of his work though and he often said that "All my books are one book". Indeed, Burroughs continually revised and re-presented themes, scenes, and characters which evolved with him throughout his career. Some major themes in his work include stories of the underworld, time/space travel, surreal and utopian societies, sex, corruption, addiction, and the struggle against the 'Control' of oppressive forces. In an interview in 1965 he said "I do definitely mean what I say to be taken literally, yes: to make people aware of the true criminality of our times ... to wise-up the Marks. All of my work is directed against those who are bent, through stupidity or design, on blowing up the planet or rendering it uninhabitable."

Burroughs tested the limits of the written word and pioneered many writing techniques, notably the cut-up and fold-in methods in which random juxtapositions of text create unforeseen words and phrases. He found that these literary montage techniques could be used to create new symbolism and even to reveal hidden messages in existing texts. In these experiments he also found insights into the human experience, writing "Life is a cut-up; consciousness is a cut-up. Every time you walk down the street or look out the window, your stream of consciousness is cut by random factors." The Adding Machine, 1985

Much of Burroughs' fiction includes autobiographical elements and characters from his life. One of his first projects was a book co-written with Jack Kerouac, And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks (written in 1945 and finally published in 2008), which recounts a story the two young writers lived through together. Sometimes Burroughs wrote in the second person, appearing as a narrator in his own stories, sharing personal, scientific, esoteric and philosophical reflections. He wrote many essays, articles, and gave interviews which were published in a wide array of mostly underground journals and reproduced in books such as The Adding Machine (1985) and The Job (1969). His correspondence is also noteworthy and there have been several volumes of his letters published.

Burroughs' major works can be divided into four different periods. The dates refer to the time of writing, not publication, which in some cases was not until decades later:

Early work (early 1950s): Junkie, Queer and The Yage Letters are relatively straightforward linear narratives, written in and about Burroughs' time in Mexico City and South America.
The cut-up period (mid-1950s to mid-1960s): Although published before Burroughs discovered the cut-up technique, Naked Lunch is a fragmentary collection of "routines" from The Word Hoard – manuscripts written in Tangier, Paris, London, as well as of some other texts written in South America such as "The Composite City", blending into the cut-up and fold-in fiction also partly drawn from The Word Hoard: The Soft Machine, Nova Express, The Ticket That Exploded, also referred to as "The Nova Trilogy" or "The Cut-Up Trilogy", self-described by Burroughs as an attempt to create "a mythology for the space age". Interzone also derives from the mid-1950s.
Experiment and subversion (mid-1960s to mid-1970s): This period saw Burroughs continue experimental writing with increased political content and branching into multimedia such as film and sound recording. The only major novel written in this period was The Wild Boys, but he also wrote dozens of published articles, short stories, scrap books and other works, several in collaboration with Brion Gysin. The major anthologies representing work from this period are The Burroughs File, The Adding Machine and Exterminator!.
The Red Night trilogy (mid-1970s to mid-1980s): The books Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands came from Burroughs in a final, mature stage, creating a complete mythology.

Burroughs also produced numerous essays and a large body of autobiographical material, including a book with a detailed account of his own dreams (My Education: A Book of Dreams).

Published Works Bibliography

Novels and fiction

   My Education: A Book of Dreams (1995)
   The Red Night Trilogy (1981-87):
     Cities of the Red Night (1981)
           The Place of Dead Roads (1983)
       The Western Lands (1987)
   Port of Saints (1973)
   The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead (1971)
    The Last Words of Dutch Schultz (1969)
    The Nova Trilogy (1961-67):
          The Soft Machine (1961/66)
      The Ticket That Exploded (1962/67)
          Nova Express (1964)
   Naked Lunch (1959)
   Queer (written 1951-3; published 1985)
   Junkie (aka Junky) (1953)

Non-fiction and letters

    Rub Out The Words: The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1959-1974 (2012)
    Everything Lost: The Latin American Notebook of William S. Burroughs (2007)
    Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (2000)
    The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1945-1959 (1993)
    Selected Letters (1993)
    Letters to Allen Ginsberg 1953-1957 (1976)
    The Retreat Diaries (1976) - later included in The Burroughs File
    The Electronic Revolution (1971)
    Jack Kerouac (1970) (with Claude Pelieu)
    The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs (1969) (with Daniel Odier)
    "Letter From A Master Addict To Dangerous Drugs," British Journal of Addiction, Vol. 53, No. 2, 3 August 1956

Stories and novellas

    Paper Cloud; Thick Pages (1992)
    Seven Deadly Sins (1992)
    Ghost of Chance (1991)
    Tornado Alley (1989)
    Interzone (1989)
    The Whole Tamale (c.1987-88)
    The Cat Inside (1986)
    The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1984)
    Ruski (1984)
    Sinki's Sauna (1982)
    Early Routines (1981)
    Streets of Chance (1981)
    Die Alten Filme (The Old Movies) (1979) - later included in The Burroughs File
    Dr. Benway (1979)
    Blade Runner - 'A Movie' (1979)
    Cobble Stone Gardens (1976) - later included in The Burroughs File
    Snack... (1975)
    The Book of Breeething (1974)
    White Subway (1973) - later included in The Burroughs File
    Mayfair Academy Series More or Less (1973)
    Ali's Smile (1971)
    The Dead Star (1969)
    APO-33 (1966)
    Time (1965)
    Valentine's Day Reading (1965)

Collections

    Burroughs Live : The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997 (2000)
    Conversations with William S. Burroughs (2000)
    Word Virus: The William Burroughs Reader (1998)
    Uncommon Quotes Vol. 1 (1989)
    Three Novels - Grove Press omnibus of The Soft Machine, Nova Express and The Wild Boys (1988)
    The Adding Machine: Collected Essays (1985)
    The Burroughs File (1984)
    Ah Pook is Here, Nova Express, Cities of the Red Night (1981)
    Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology (1978)
    Exterminator! (1973) - a different book from the 1960 collaboration with Brion Gysin
    Dead Fingers Talk (1963) - excerpts from Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded combined together to create a new narrative
    Roosevelt After Inauguration and Other Atrocities (1965)
    Interzone (written mid-1950s, published 1988)

Collaborations

    The Black Rider (1989) (with Tom Waits and Robert Wilson)
    Apocalypse (1988) (with Keith Haring)
    Ah Pook Is Here and Other Texts (1979) (with Malcolm McNeill)
    Colloque de Tangier Vol. 2 (1979) (with Brion Gysin and Gérard-Georges Lemaire)
    The Third Mind (1977) (with Brion Gysin)
    Colloque de Tangier (1976) (with Brion Gysin)
    Sidetripping (1975) (with Charles Gatewood)
    Brion Gysin Let the Mice In (1973) (with Brion Gysin)
    Rules of Duel (1970; republished 2010) (primarily by Graham Masterton, but Burroughs receives co-author credit)
    So Who Owns Death TV? (1967) (with Claude Pelieu and Carl Weissner)
    The Yage Letters (1963) (with Allen Ginsberg)
    The Exterminator (1960) (with Brion Gysin)
    Minutes To Go (1960) (with Sinclair Beilles, Gregory Corso and Brion Gysin)
    And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks (1945; published November 2008) (with Jack Kerouac)