Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate.

Addison Mizner, 1872 – 1933
William Seward Burroughs biography at QuotationFun

A Short Biography of William Seward Burroughs

Author Name:

William Seward Burroughs

Born As:

Other Names:

Pen name William Lee

Born:

05 Feb 1914

Died:

02 Aug 1997




author picture 
Novelist, poet, essayist, painter and orator                          
Selected Works:

Burroughs's 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's time in Mexico City and South America.

The Cut-Up Period - mid 1950s to mid 1960s: 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 heavily drawn from The Word Hoard: The Soft Machine, Nova Express, The Ticket That Exploded, also referred to as "The Nova Trilogy" or "the Nova Epic", self-described by Burroughs as an attempt to create "a mythology for the space age". Interzone also derives from this period.

Experiment & 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 Gyson. 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.                          
Mother Laura Hammon Lee
Father Mortimer Perry Burroughs, William was the younger of two sons.
First wife Ilse von Klapper - 1937-1946
Second wife Joan Vollmer - 1946-1951, one son.



Grandfather, William Seward Burroughs I, founded the Burroughs Adding Machine company.