Item #40918 Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965). William S. BURROUGHS.
Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965).
Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965).
Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965).
Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965).
Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965).
Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965).
Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965).

19.

Two open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” (Paris, c. 1959) and “Old Farmers’ Almanac” (New York, c. April 1965).

Quarter inch tape on 7-inch plastic spools. Duration 76.00 + 41.00; 3.75 ips. Tapes housed in a hinged BASF box with typed title labels to front and spine (probably typed by Burroughs, who often used black and red typewriter ribbons), and an Audiotape box with Burroughs’ ink holograph title, “The Inheritors”, to upper panel.

i) The first tape begins with a good sound quality recording of Burroughs reading “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah”, made in Paris at the Beat Hotel in 1959. The tape is listed in the “Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archive II” (Bonn/Basel: Expanded Media Editions, 2024) under the section headed “The WSB Tape Collection of Am Here Books”. Richard Aaron describes how “This tape was purchased by me from a clerk at Bernard Quaritch’s who in turn purchased the tape from Larry Wallrich who had purchased the tape from Melville Hardiment with whom WSB had left a large amount of tapes and manuscripts for safe keeping. Hardiment appears to have claimed the materials WSB left in his possession as settlement of an old debt… the story is not clear… Most of the tape appears to be early Cut-up experiments but identification is difficult due to bad quality of the recording. There is one long clear section of perhaps 30 minutes [in fact, 18.23] on the beginning of side 1 and this is The Last Words of which I have made a 9 page partial transcript. A brilliant and important work - Unpublished.” Aaron later published the complete transcript in Am Here Books Catalogue 5, together with a 7-inch vinyl record of “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah”, made from this tape.

The remainder of the tape (approx. 57.00), probably recorded in 1965 at 210 Centre Street, New York, consists of poor quality recordings of Burroughs reading from his own work, including fragments from “The Soft Machine”, much of it in a monotone, possibly inebriated mumble. On occasion, the sound of paper rustling can be heard as he reads from piles of newspaper clippings, searching for the occurrence of the number ‘23’ or highlighting crime and disaster reports. At one point he laughs to himself as he hears what he is reading. After approximately 54 minutes, another voice reading a cut-up is dropped-in, probably that of Sinclair Beiles. The recordings are punctuated by the sharp mechanical clicks of Burroughs punching the cheap tape recorders’ on/off buttons (according to Brion Gysin, Burroughs “could punch one of them to death inside a matter of weeks, days even”).

ii) The second tape is also listed in the Archive II Catalogue, described by Richard Aaron: “In original box with WSB autograph title: The Inheritors. Fragments of The Last Words Of Dutch Schultz interspersed with radio plays, radio music, WSB reading from newspapers, street sounds.” The recording, titled “Old Farmers’ Almanac”, was included in the 3-CD compilation, “Real English Tea Made Here” (item #38). Recorded at 210 Centre Street in 1965, Miles describes it in the CD’s accompanying booklet as having “two layers of drop-ins of Burroughs reading from the ‘Last Words of Dutch Schultz’, from newspaper disaster reports, and his own texts, which sometimes cut into each other. Sometimes he responds to the radio announcer with an appropriate improvisation.” The tape’s sound quality is superior to the “Real English Tea Made Here” CD, which used a different tape as its source (working out which is the master or first generation recording of Burroughs’ tapes is almost impossible as he frequently duplicated or re-dubbed them).

Burroughs’ ink inscription, “The Inheritors”, to the tape box’s lid, probably referring to the eponymous novel co-authored with Ford Madox Ford by Joseph Conrad, a writer much admired by him.

Boxes slightly worn; tapes digitised and transferred to two CDs.

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