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18.
Minutes To Go.
SIGNED and inscribed on the title page: “For Ted Berrigan William S. Burroughs”, and additionally signed by Brion Gysin alongside his printed name.
Paris: Two Cities Editions, 1960. First edition. Wrps. Cover design by Brion Gysin. The first collection of cut-ups.
A terrific association, since Berrigan’s first and most important work, “The Sonnets”, was influenced in part by the cut-up experiments first published in “Minutes To Go”. Berrigan also published Burroughs’s work in C: A Journal of Poetry and arranged to have “Time”, one of his most elaborate collage and cut-up projects, published by ‘C’ Press Books.
Burroughs has written the first line of his inscription in red marker pen and the second in black marker pen. The date of the inscription is unclear: it may have been December 11, 1964 when it’s known that Burroughs visited Berrigan in New York and inscribed first editions of “Junkie” and “The Ticket That Exploded” for him (the latter item was offered for sale by rare bookdealer Ken Lopez in 2006).
Alternatively, a clue may lie in the red marker pen, known by this cataloguer to have been used by Burroughs for signing his middle initial in at least one copy of the numbered and signed edition of “Time”, in which case the date of the inscription would have been circa April 1965. Either way, good Burroughs association copies such as this are uncommon.
Gysin’s signature is harder to date, though it closely resembles those found in copies signed by him at or near the time of the book’s publication in April 1960.
Slight fading along spine, as usual, with two short, superficial creases to top edge of upper wrapper affecting the first few leaves, o/w a tight, clean copy.
Price:
£1,250.00
