1963 British hardcover edition.

Dead Fingers Talk, first published in 1963, was the fifth novel published by Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs. The book was originally published by Olympia Press. 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The term beat generation was introduced by Jack Kerouac in approximately 1948 to describe his social circle to the novelist John Clellon Holmes (who published an early novel about the beat generation, titled Go, in 1952, along with a manifesto of sorts in the New York Times Magazine: This is... William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic and spoken word performer. ... Olympia Press was a Paris based publisher, best known for the first print of Nabokov s Lolita; this led to copyright issues, since Nabokov was not satisfied with the publisher and the reputation it had, since besides some serious literature, it published mostly erotic novels. ...

The book combines sections from Burroughs' earlier novels, Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, along with new material, in an attempt to create a new narrative. Its plot cannot be easily described. Naked Lunch was the third novel by William S. Burroughs. ... The Soft Machine is the title of a novel by William S. Burroughs, first published in 1961 and was Burroughs first novel after the grandbreaking publication of Naked Lunch. ... The Ticket That Exploded is a novel by William S. Burroughs published in 1962. ...

Dead Fingers Talk, like many of Burroughs' works, was controversial upon its release. It was the subject of a scathing review in the Times Literary Supplement that resulted in a war of words between supporters and detractors of the novel (and Burroughs in general) that played out in the magazine's letters page for months. The Times Literary Supplement (or TLS) is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation. ...

The book itself is considered one of the rarer of Burroughs' novels, and despite some reprints in the 1970s, has otherwise been out of print for years.

The band Dead Fingers Talk takes its name from this book.

External link

• Website discussing Burroughs work and the reaction to Dead Fingers Talk.