Author Guide · Experimental Fiction
Books Written by
William S. Burroughs published his first book in 1953 as a paperback under a false name, William Lee: Junkie, a flat, exact account of heroin addiction. Six years later a Paris publisher brought out Naked Lunch, a book assembled from fragments written in Tangier, which a Boston court declared obscene in 1965 before the state’s highest court reversed the ruling in 1966. Born in St. Louis in 1914 and a Harvard graduate, he was older than Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, whom he met in New York in the 1940s, and appears in Kerouac’s On the Road as Old Bull Lee. With the painter Brion Gysin he went on to cut up and rearrange text with scissors. This guide covers his 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1953–1995 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
William S. Burroughs’s best-known books are Naked Lunch (1959), Junkie (1953), Queer (written 1951–53, published 1985) and the cut-up novels The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962) and Nova Express (1964). Start with Junkie, his only straightforward narrative; it explains the world and the narrator that Naked Lunch then breaks into pieces.
Where to Start with William S. Burroughs
If you want a clear, direct way in
→ Junkie (1953) — addiction told in plain, reported prose.
If you want the book that made him famous
→ Naked Lunch (1959) — the routines, Dr. Benway and the Interzone.
If you want to see the cut-up method at work
→ Nova Express (1964) — the most readable of the three cut-up novels.
If you want his later, more storylike fiction
→ Cities of the Red Night (1981) — the start of the Red Night trilogy.
11 William S. Burroughs Books, in Order
Junkie
The narrator, William Lee, describes his heroin addiction in New York, New Orleans and Mexico City: scoring, dealing, arrests and withdrawal, in deliberately flat, factual sentences. Ace Books published it as a paperback under the name William Lee. Later editions use the spelling Junky.
Naked Lunch
A sequence of loosely connected episodes, which Burroughs called routines, following William Lee from New York to the Interzone, a city modelled on Tangier, where he wrote much of it. Recurring figures include the surgeon Dr. Benway. Olympia Press published it in Paris in July 1959; Grove Press brought it out in the United States in November 1962. David Cronenberg made a film loosely based on it in 1991, with Peter Weller as Lee.
The Soft Machine
The first of three novels built with the cut-up method, in which written pages are cut apart and recombined. Agents travel through time and bodies, including back to the Maya, fighting forces that control people through language and images. Burroughs revised it in 1966.
The Ticket That Exploded
The second cut-up novel, first published by Olympia Press in Paris and revised for its 1967 American edition. It develops his idea of words and recorded sound as tools of control, and describes using tape recorders to cut up and scramble them.
Nova Express
The third cut-up novel and the first published by Grove Press in New York. Inspector Lee of the Nova Police pursues the Nova Mob, criminals who set planets against each other until they destroy themselves. It has more of a plot line than the two books before it.
The Wild Boys
In a future world at war, gangs of boys who have rejected adult society live in the desert and wage guerrilla war against established armies. The book moves between film-script passages, Moroccan scenes and violent fantasy.
Cities of the Red Night
The first book of his last trilogy. One strand follows an 18th-century band of pirates setting up free communities; another follows the private detective Clem Snide investigating a disappearance in the present; a third concerns ancient cities and a virus. The strands converge as the book goes on.
The Place of Dead Roads
The second book of the trilogy, written as a Western: Kim Carsons, a gunfighter and writer in the American West of the 1890s, leads a secret group against their enemies, and the story moves through time and space.
Queer
Written in 1951–53 as a follow-up to Junkie and left unfinished, it was published more than thirty years later. Lee, off heroin in Mexico City, falls for a younger American, Eugene Allerton, and takes him on a trip to South America in search of the drug yagé. Burroughs’s 1985 introduction discusses the death of his wife Joan Vollmer. Luca Guadagnino filmed it in 2024 with Daniel Craig as Lee.
The Western Lands
His last novel and the end of the trilogy, built on ancient Egyptian ideas of the soul and the afterlife: the Western Lands are the land of the dead, and the characters look for a way to reach them. An old writer working on the book appears in it.
My Education
Records of his dreams over many years, put together in his last years in Kansas. Dead friends recur, alongside the places and characters of his fiction.
In What Order to Read William S. Burroughs
His work falls into clear groups, so read by group rather than strictly by date. Junkie and Queer are the early autobiographical novels; Queer was written straight after Junkie, so the two read best together even though Queer appeared in 1985. Naked Lunch follows, then the three cut-up novels, The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and Nova Express, often called the Nova trilogy.
The late books are easier to follow than the 1960s ones. Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands form a trilogy and should be read in that order. The Wild Boys sits between the two periods.
A reading path
1. Junkie (1953)
2. Queer (1985)
3. Naked Lunch (1959)
4. Nova Express (1964)
5. Cities of the Red Night (1981)
Everything Else William S. Burroughs Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 10 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Collaborations
2
2 books · 1963–2008
- 1963The Yage Lettersletters to Allen Ginsberg from his search for yagé in South America, with Ginsberg’s reply
- 2008And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanksa novel written with Jack Kerouac in 1945 about a real killing in their circle
Stories, shorter fiction and collections
5
5 books · 1963–1989
- 1963Dead Fingers Talkmaterial reworked from Naked Lunch and the cut-up novels
- 1973Exterminator!linked stories
- 1973Port of Saintsa novel related to The Wild Boys
- 1986The Cat Insidea short book about his cats
- 1989Interzoneearly stories and the writing that led to Naked Lunch
Interviews, essays and journals
3
3 books · 1969–2000
- 1969The Jobinterviews with Daniel Odier
- 1985The Adding Machinecollected essays
- 2000Last Wordsjournals from his final months
The years · 1914–1997
Quick facts about William S. Burroughs
- Known for
- Burroughs is known for Naked Lunch and the cut-up technique, and as the oldest figure of the Beat Generation.
- 1914
- Born in St. Louis, Missouri
- 1959
- Naked Lunch
- 1966
- Massachusetts court rules Naked Lunch not obscene
- 1983
- Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1997
- Dies in Lawrence, Kansas
- Born
- 5 February 1914, St. Louis, Missouri
- Education
- Harvard University, graduated 1936
- Circle
- Friend of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac from the 1940s; Old Bull Lee in On the Road
- Method
- The cut-up, developed with Brion Gysin in Paris from 1959
- Honours
- Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1983)
- Family
- Married Joan Vollmer; their son William S. Burroughs Jr. (1947–1981) was also a novelist
- Died
- 2 August 1997, Lawrence, Kansas, aged 83
The red mark is 1959: Naked Lunch, first published by Olympia Press in Paris.
How William S. Burroughs Writes: Routines, Cut-ups and Control
Burroughs began as a reporter of his own life. Junkie is written in short declarative sentences that explain how addiction works — prices, slang, doctors, police — with almost no comment. The same narrator, William Lee, carries through Queer and Naked Lunch and turns up, under various names, in much of what follows.
Naked Lunch replaced plot with routines: self-contained comic and grotesque set pieces, often spoken by a character such as Dr. Benway, which can be read in almost any order. In Paris in 1959 Brion Gysin showed him the cut-up, slicing pages and recombining them, and Burroughs used it, along with tape-recorder experiments, through The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and Nova Express. His recurring subject is control: addiction, police, language and media as systems that take hold of the body.
From the 1970s his books grew more narrative again. The Wild Boys and the Red Night trilogy still jump between times and voices, but they borrow the frames of popular genres — the pirate story, the detective story, the Western — and follow characters over whole books.
Frequently asked questions about William S. Burroughs’s books
How many books has William S. Burroughs written?
More than twenty, counting collaborations, collections, interviews and journals. Eleven are the key books on this page, from Junkie (1953) to My Education (1995); ten more are listed below them, including The Yage Letters (1963) with Allen Ginsberg and And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks (2008) with Jack Kerouac.
What are William S. Burroughs’s books in order?
Junkie (1953), Naked Lunch (1959), The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), Nova Express (1964), The Wild Boys (1971), Cities of the Red Night (1981), The Place of Dead Roads (1983), Queer (1985, written 1951–53), The Western Lands (1987) and My Education (1995).
Where should I start with William S. Burroughs?
Junkie (1953). It is his only conventional narrative, short and clear, and it introduces William Lee, the narrator of Naked Lunch. Read Queer next, then Naked Lunch.
What is William S. Burroughs’s most famous book?
Naked Lunch (1959), first published by Olympia Press in Paris and in the United States by Grove Press in 1962. Time included it in its list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923.
What happened between Burroughs and Joan Vollmer, and why was Naked Lunch put on trial?
On 6 September 1951, in Mexico City, Burroughs shot and killed his wife Joan Vollmer, reportedly while trying to shoot a glass off her head; accounts of the evening vary. He was convicted in his absence and given a two-year suspended sentence. In his 1985 introduction to Queer he wrote that he would never have become a writer but for her death. Separately, Naked Lunch was tried for obscenity in Boston in January 1965, with Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg testifying for the defence; the court found it obscene in March 1965, and on 7 July 1966 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reversed the ruling.
Have William S. Burroughs’s books been made into films?
Yes. David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (1991), with Peter Weller, mixes the novel with episodes from Burroughs’s life and was made with his approval. Luca Guadagnino’s Queer (2024), with Daniel Craig as William Lee, premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
What is the cut-up technique?
A method of cutting written pages into pieces and rearranging them to make new text. The painter Brion Gysin showed it to Burroughs in Paris in 1959, and Burroughs used it to write The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and Nova Express.
Was William S. Burroughs part of the Beat Generation?
Yes, as its oldest member. He met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in New York in the 1940s, Kerouac based the character Old Bull Lee in On the Road on him, and Ginsberg and Kerouac helped prepare the manuscript of Naked Lunch.
What are the Nova and Red Night trilogies?
The Nova trilogy is his three cut-up novels: The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962) and Nova Express (1964). The Red Night trilogy is his last three novels: Cities of the Red Night (1981), The Place of Dead Roads (1983) and The Western Lands (1987). Read each in that order.
Is William S. Burroughs still alive?
No. He died on 2 August 1997 in Lawrence, Kansas, aged 83, of complications from a heart attack the day before.
Footnotes
- William S. Burroughs — Wikipedia
- William S. Burroughs bibliography — Wikipedia
- Naked Lunch — Wikipedia
- Queer (film) — Wikipedia
- This Week in Literary History: Burroughs and Joan Vollmer — Lit Hub
- When William S. Burroughs Appeared on Saturday Night Live — Open Culture
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan’s death.”
— William S. Burroughs, introduction to Queer (1985)
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