BURROUGHS, WILLIAM. 1914-1997. The Naked Lunch. Paris: The Olympia Press, [1959]. 8vo. Publisher's green printed wrappers, publisher's printed dust jacket. Title page with ornamental green border, 'Francs: 1,500' price printed on back wrapper. Dust jacket with small loss at upper edge of rear panel, neat tear along fold of rear flap, corner of inside rear flap a bit creased. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. WILLIAM BURROUGHS' SIGNATURE on a slip of paper laid in. Burroughs's semi-autobiographical second published novel again follows the character 'William Lee', this time from USA to Mexico and Tangiers. Burroughs lived for a time in Tangiers and wrote much of the novel there. After it was initially rejected for publication by the Olympia Press, and following the eventual failure of the bizarre obscenity court case brought by the US Post Office against a new magazine Big Table for publishing extracts, Burroughs's taboo-breaking masterpiece was finally published by Olympia in July 1959. Six months later the Franc was devalued, and unsold copies of the book were re-priced, usually bearing an '18 NF' stamp on top of the original price. Maynard A2a. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing