Is my copy of William Burroughs' Naked Lunch a First Edition?
First Edition Points: Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (Grove Press, 1962)
Spines tingle.
If Howl cracked the ice, Naked Lunch drove a steam-powered rail spike through it. William S. Burroughs' grotesque, nightmarishly hilarious, morphine-laced descent into the human psyche was originally published in Paris in 1959 by Olympia Press. But it wasn’t until 1962 that the book made landfall in the U.S., courtesy of Grove Press—a house with a well-earned reputation for publishing the unpublishable.
This is the true American First Edition of Naked Lunch, Grove Press, 1962. Here’s what to look for.
Points of Issue: U.S. First Edition, First Printing
Publisher: Grove Press
Publication Date: 1962
Binding: Black cloth boards with gilt spine lettering. Black top stain. No variant colors, no tricks—just stark, institutional black, perhaps in honor of the government files Burroughs surely inspired.
Black on black on black.
Dust Jacket:
Dust Jacket is shows the $6.00 price at the top of the front flap.
The address to the bottom of the dust jacket should read:
“64 University Place, New York 3, N.Y.”
There should be no roman numerals to the rear jacket near the spine.
This would fall in line with the photo credit copyright to Martha Rocher. This is usually just to the right of the Kerouac blurb.
There are no numbers at the foot of the spine.
Back flap features blurbs from Norman Mailer, Robert Lowell, E.S. Seldon, and Jack Kerouac, among others, touting Burroughs as the literary equivalent of a wrecking ball.
Dust Jacket shows the $6.00 price at the top of the front flap.
Dust Jacket shows the $6.00 price at the top of the front flap.
The address to the bottom of the dust jacket should read:
“64 University Place, New York 3, N.Y.”
Copyright Page:
States: “First Printing”
No mention of subsequent printings or years. If it doesn’t say “First Printing,” it isn’t.
Although the date states 1959, the book was not printed until 1962.
Notes on Condition
Due to the content—and the era—many copies lived hard lives. Jacket chips and edge wear are common. Interior foxing and tape repairs show up more than you'd hope. The spine of the jacket is often faded thanks to the sun’s enduring war on the avant-garde. Copies with bright, unfaded jackets and crisp boards are increasingly scarce. Signed copies? Scarcer still. Burroughs signed with a detached air, but sign he did—often at readings well into the 1980s and '90s.
Olympia vs. Grove: A Word to the Wise
The Olympia Press edition came first, in 1959, in its green-wrappered “Traveller’s Companion” series. That edition is its own collectible beast, with variant wraps, price stamps, and censorship headaches. But for most U.S. collectors—and certainly for those building an American postwar literature shelf—the Grove Press edition is iconic and a titan to display on the shelf.
It also marks the First Edition of Naked Lunch to appear under that exact title. Olympia published it as The Naked Lunch (definite article included), a minor but notable distinction for the completists and obsessive among us.
Cultural Legacy
There’s no overstating Naked Lunch's impact. It was the subject of an obscenity trial. It was banned, censored, dissected, championed, adapted to film (as one best could), and—in what might be the final mark of acceptance—taught. If you don’t find it in a college course now, check again next semester.
Burroughs’ influence on modern literature, punk aesthetics, experimental film, and postmodern theory is hard to pin down, largely because it’s everywhere. He rewired narrative form and torched linearity with it.
Bottom Line for Collectors
A true U.S. First Edition of Naked Lunch is a cornerstone of any Beat Generation collection, and frankly, any midcentury American lit collection worth its salt. Expect to pay anywhere from $400 to $1,200 depending on condition, with signed copies fetching several times that.
Like the book itself, it's unignorable, unpredictable, and a little bit dangerous.
Want help identifying your copy? Drop us a line.
