The Soft Machine. Burroughs, William S[Eward]. Literature After 1880

Small 8vo. (4), 182, (6) pp. Original illustrated paperback wrappers. Stored in black cloth chemise and slipcase with red morocco spine label. First Evergreen "Black Cat" (Grove) paperback printing, inscribed to the Colorado architect Edward D. White Jr. (1925-2017) by the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg: "For Ed White / This book follows / Naked Lunch / in chronology / Allen Ginsberg". - Edward White had met Ginsberg in 1946 at Columbia University, where he had returned to complete his studies that had been interrupted by war service, soon forming a close relationship with fellow Beats William S. Burroughs and especially Jack Kerouac, who became a lifelong friend and correspondent; White appears as the character Tim Gray in Kerouac's "On the Road". - An intriguing association piece, given that it was the manuscript for "Interzone" that Ginsberg had retained from Burroughs that was added (along with other material) to what became the Grove edition of "Naked Lunch". The Grove edition was how most readers encountered the work, and with Ginsberg’s input it represented a very different and much improved text than the Olympia Press edition. While the "The Soft Machine" did follow "Naked Lunch", it is also the first book of Burroughs’ "Nova Trilogy" - a radical experiment in subverting usual narrative structures that influenced Bowie and Cyberpunk authors.