The Exterminator
San Francisco: The Auerhahn Press, 1960. 1st Edition. Octavo, publisher’s stiff illustrated paper wraps.
First edition of proto-Beat legend Burroughs and Beat-Surrealist painter Gysin’s foundational cut-up collaboration. Emerging from the pair’s experiments with cutting apart and rearranging existing texts to undermine conventional narrative, The Exterminator gathers fragmented prose, poetry, manifestos, and repeated phrases, alongside Gysin’s permutation texts and calligraphic drawings. Published shortly after Naked Lunch, this slim volume similarly addresses addiction, execution, mass communication, viruses, and the control of consciousness. It is cited as a precursor to Burroughs's subsequent cut-up novels The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, as well as the later Burroughs-Gysin collaboration The Third Mind. Published by Dave Haselwood’s influential San Francisco-based imprint The Auerhahn Press. Light soiling and staining to wraps. Very good. Item #13398
$150.00