Beat Literature Burroughs Retreat Diaries 1976 1st Ed 2000 Copies Allen Ginsburg
$196 · Offered by eBay
First edition · Limited edition
.no-subscribe { display: none} [contenteditable] { pointer-events: none; } The Retreat Diaries by William S. Burroughs with The Dream of Tibet by Allen Ginsburg Published by The City Moon, New York, 1976. Limited First Edition of 2000. Very good staple-bound in paper wraps. Light cover wear, stains to pages 8 and 9, no writing or marking to text, 40 pages. The Retreat Diaries is a slim, unconventional work by Burroughs, a key figure in the Beat Generation known for Naked Lunch and his cut-up writing technique. Published in 1976 by The City Moon—a small, Beat-adjacent press run by James Grauerholz, Burroughs’ longtime assistant—it’s part of their "City Moon Broadcast" series (No. 3). This first (and only) edition was limited to 2,000 copies, making it a relatively scarce item today. There was also a rarer subset: 100 copies with a colored wrapper, 26 of which were signed and lettered (A-Z) by Burroughs, though some sources suggest these signed copies may not have been widely distributed. The book itself is a 40-page stapled paperback, roughly 8.5 x 5.25 inches, with a simple design—printed wrappers, three black-and-white photos, and a raw, unpolished feel typical of small-press Beat literature. It’s not a narrative in the traditional sense but a fragmented journal from August 1975, capturing Burroughs’ thoughts, dreams, and reflections during a retreat. He’d been in Boulder, Colorado, talking with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, about a potential retreat
- Publisher: The City Moon
- Year: 1976
- Binding: Paperback
- Condition: Very Good
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