An Online Burroughs Periodical Bibliography: Intro and Pre-1960

 ~2,500 Burroughs-related periodicals have been noted at last count (18 October 2026)

Any cursory look at the typical bibliographies or listings of Burroughs materials (Maynard & Miles, Goodman, Shoaf, Schottlaender, Skerl, Strong, etc.) will quickly inform one of the breadth and scale of the material.  Each source has made compromises, whether due to limitations of access, geographic constraints, filtering decisions, and the fundamental prejudices and interests of the bibliographer.

In Outskirts of the City, I wanted to take a broader look through the corpus of Burroughs-related periodicals and start connecting some dots that were left ignored, and others that simply were not noticed.  In my own collecting to build up this website – which only presents those periodicals I myself have been able to acquire and document – I have been also a collector of footnotes, endnotes, references, rumors, prior sales, and suggestions.  Sometimes these bear fruit and lead to interesting and sometimes substantive discoveries, but other times are distractions, treasure maps to nowhere.

One thing that I have recognized in this (perhaps Quixotic) pursuit to build a "better" periodical bibliography is the need for efficiency, reduction of duplication, streamlining of process.  To that means, and in accordance with my interests in transparency, I present here the "global" list of the items I know about – for your and my reference.  These include primary contributions, interviews, reviews, fan articles, photo essays, perhaps even simple mentions or quotes.  For those that I have collected, I provide links to their representative post.  For those that I have not... well... my apologies if they turn out as dead-ends.  I will add the best information possible, and, as stated elsewhere, if you know more than I do, please let me know.

I hope that this provides those interested with the tools they need for their research and collecting.  This page will be updated as I have refined information and as my own collection develops.

Best wishes,
demi

P.S. If you help me locate any missing items, I'll be sure to credit you on post.

Some notes on the annotations below...

  • Organization is by year, then name, then date, then volume/number
  • "The" as a leading article is omitted in titles, alphabetization is as if all titles are English.
  • Items with primary Burroughs contributions are in bold. Interviews will be noted as interviews. Generally quotes are not treated as primary contributions, unlike some other bibliographies.
  • Don't trust the listing if its not present on this site as a post
  • In {"curly braces"} are relevant entries at the bibliographers of others:
    • "M&M": William S. Burroughs: A Bibliography, 1953-73 by Joe Maynard and Barry Miles, University Press of Virginia, 1978
    • "MBG": William S. Burroughs: A Reference Guide by Michael B. Goodman and Lemuel B. Coley, Garland Publishing, 1990
    • "ECS": William S. Burroughs: A Collector's Guide by Eric C. Shoaf, Inkblot, 2014
    • "BS4": Anything but Routine: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography of William S. Burroughs, v.4 by Brian E. C. Schottlaender, UC San Diego, 2016
    • "BS5": Anything but Routine: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography of William S. Burroughs, v.5 by Brian E. C. Schottlaender, UC San Diego, 2023
    • "BL": Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997, edited by Sylvère Lotringer, Semiotext(e), 2001.  This is numbered based on the Table of Contents.
  • There well may be errors; my apologies for any typos and omissions

Additional Credits (incomplete):

  • newspapers.com
  • the William S. Burroughs Papers at New York Public Library
  • the William S. Burroughs Papers at Ohio State University Library
  • the William S. Burroughs Papers at Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library
  • the William S. Burroughs Collection at Arizona State University Libraries Special Collections
  • Eric Mottram's list of Nova Express reviews [with thanks to Jim Pennington]
  • every relevant footnote and endnote I spot
  • Simon Dell for his list of articles
  • Jeff Goldberg
  • Jan Herman

Bibliography Sections:

1929 (1 entry)

  • John Burroughs Review, February 1929 (US) [this contains Burroughs' student essay on Shaftesbury's Instantaneous Personal Magnetism]
1938 (1 entry)
  • John Burroughs Review, Volume 15, Number 1-2, February 1938 (US) [a reprint of the earlier student paper] {BS4 C1; BS5 C1}
1944 (3 entries)

1946 (1 entry)
  • St. Louis Dispatch, 22 August 1946 (US) [on the pending divorce from Ilse Klapper, which finalized in 1948]
1951 (2 entries)

  • New York Times, 8 September 1951 (US) [On the Joan Vollmer shooting] {MBG D.104}

  • New York Times, 11 September 1951 (US) [On the Joan Vollmer shooting] {MBG D.106}

1956 (1 entry)
1957 (3 entries)
1958 (4 entries)
1959 (17 entries)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts