Editing William S. Burroughs (section)

==Early life and education==

Burroughs was born in 1914, the younger of two sons born to Mortimer Perry Burroughs (June 16, 1885 – January 5, 1965) and Laura Hammon Lee (August 5, 1888 – October 20, 1970). Of prominent [[English American|English ancestry]], his family lived in [[St. Louis|St.&nbsp;Louis, Missouri]]. His grandfather, [[William Seward Burroughs I]], had founded the Burroughs Adding Machine company, which evolved into the [[Burroughs Corporation]]. His mother was Laura Hammond Lee Burroughs, whose brother, [[Ivy Lee]], was an advertising pioneer later employed as a publicist for the Rockefellers. His father ran an antiques and gift shop, Cobblestone Gardens, in St.&nbsp;Louis and later in [[Palm Beach, Florida]], when they relocated. Burroughs would later write of growing up in a "family where displays of affection were considered embarrassing".<ref name=Morgan-1988-2012/>{{rp|page=26}}

During his childhood, Burroughs developed a lifelong interest in [[Magic (supernatural)|magic]] and the [[occult]], which would eventually find their way repeatedly into his writings.{{efn|"'''TV:''' So much of your work deals with the juncture between science and mystery, it seems. I mean there've been references to Orgone boxes, and Scientology, and Castaneda, it just goes on and on ... how did you get interested in this sort of area?<br/>'''WB:''' Always was. I always was involved in that area from my early childhood. I was always interested in the occult and the mysterious ... just a life-long preoccupation." — William S. Burroughs, interviewed by Tom Vitale, November 26, 1986<ref>Transcript published as ''A Moveable Feast'' in ''Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs 1960–1997'' 2001.</ref>}} Significantly, he later described how, as a child, he'd seen an apparition of a green reindeer in the woods, which he identified as a [[totem|totem animal]],{{efn|"When I was four years old I saw a vision in Forest Park, St. Louis ... I was lagging behind and I saw a little green reindeer about the size of a cat ... Later, when I studied anthropology at Harvard, I learned that this was a totem animal vision and knew that I could never kill a reindeer." — William S. Burroughs<ref>Burroughs, 1992. ''The Cat Inside''. Viking.</ref>}} as well as a vision of ghostly gray figures at play in his bedroom.{{efn|"I was subject to hallucinations as a child. Once I woke up in the early morning light and saw little men playing in a block house I had made. I felt no fear, only a feeling of stillness and wonder." — William S. Burroughs<ref>Burroughs, 1977, ''Junky'', prologue. Penguin.</ref>}}

As a boy, Burroughs lived on Pershing Avenue (now Pershing Place) in St.&nbsp;Louis's [[Central West End, St. Louis|Central West End]]. He attended [[John Burroughs School]] in St.&nbsp;Louis, where his first published essay — "Personal Magnetism", which revolved around telepathic mind-control — was printed in the ''John Burroughs Review'' in 1929.<ref>{{cite web |title=William S Burroughs |website=Popsubculture.com |series=Biography |url=http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/william_s_burroughs.html}}</ref> He then attended the [[Los Alamos Ranch School]] in New Mexico, which was stressful for him. The school was a boarding school for the wealthy, "where the spindly sons of the rich could be transformed into manly specimens".<ref name=Morgan-1988-2012/>{{rp|page=44}} Burroughs kept [[diary|journals]] documenting an erotic attachment to another boy. According to his own account, he destroyed these later, ashamed of their content.<ref name="Word Virus 2000, p. 21">{{cite book|title=Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader|editor1-first=James|editor1-last=Grauerholz|editor2-first=Ira|editor2-last=Silverberg|editor3-first=Ann|editor3-last=Douglas|editor3-link=Ann Douglas (historian)|publisher=[[Grove Press]]|location=New York City|date=2000|page=21|isbn=978-0802136947}}</ref> He kept his sexual orientation concealed from his family well into adulthood. A common story says<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.flavorwire.com/148558/97-things-you-didnt-know-about-william-s-burroughs |title=97 Things you didn't know about William S. Burroughs |last=Staff |first=Flavorwire |date=February 4, 2011 |website=Flavorwire |access-date=August 14, 2020}}</ref> that he was expelled from Los Alamos after taking [[chloral hydrate]] in [[Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe]] with a fellow student. Yet, according to his own account, he left voluntarily: "During the Easter vacation of my second year I persuaded my family to let me stay in St. Louis."<ref name="Word Virus 2000, p. 21"/>

[[File:William S. Burroughs' childhood home .jpg|thumb|Burroughs's childhood home on Pershing Place in [[St. Louis, Missouri|St. Louis]]]]

===Harvard University===
Burroughs finished high school at Taylor School in [[Clayton, Missouri|Clayton]], Missouri, and in 1932 left home to pursue an arts degree at [[Harvard University]], where he was affiliated with [[Adams House (Harvard University)|Adams House]]. During the summers, he worked as a cub reporter for the ''[[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]]'', covering the police docket. He disliked the work, and refused to cover some events, like the death of a drowned child. He lost his virginity in an [[East St. Louis, Illinois]], brothel that summer with a female prostitute whom he regularly patronized.<ref name=Morgan-1988-2012/>{{rp|at=papers, p.62}} While at Harvard, Burroughs made trips to New York City and was introduced to the gay subculture there. He visited lesbian dives, piano bars, and the [[Harlem]] and [[Greenwich Village]] homosexual underground with Richard Stern, a wealthy friend from [[Kansas City, Missouri|Kansas City]]. They would drive from Boston to New York in a reckless fashion. Once, Stern scared Burroughs so badly that he asked to be let out of the vehicle.<ref name=Morgan-1988-2012/>{{rp|page=611}}

Burroughs graduated from Harvard in 1936. According to Ted Morgan's ''Literary Outlaw'',<ref name=Morgan-1988-2012/>

<blockquote>His parents, upon his graduation, had decided to give him a monthly allowance of $200 out of their earnings from Cobblestone Gardens, a substantial sum in those days. It was enough to keep him going, and indeed it guaranteed his survival for the next twenty-five years, arriving with welcome regularity. The allowance was a ticket to freedom; it allowed him to live where he wanted to and to forgo employment.<ref name=Morgan-1988-2012/>{{rp|pages=69–70}}</blockquote>

Burroughs's parents sold the rights to his grandfather's invention and had no share in the [[Burroughs Corporation]]. Shortly before the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929|1929 stock market crash]], they sold their stock for $200,000 (equivalent to approximately ${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|200000|1929|r=-5}}}} in today's funds{{inflation-fn|US}}).<ref name=NYTobit>{{cite news |title = William S. Burroughs Dies at 83; Member of the Beat Generation Wrote 'Naked Lunch' |first = Richard |last = Severo |date = August 3, 1997 |newspaper = [[The New York Times]] |url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEED6123DF930A3575BC0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all |access-date = October 22, 2007 }}</ref>

===Europe and First Marriage===
After Burroughs graduated from Harvard, his formal education ended, except for brief flirtations with graduate study of [[anthropology]] at Columbia and medicine in Vienna, Austria. He traveled to Europe and became involved in Austrian and Hungarian [[Weimar Republic|Weimar]]-era [[gay culture]]; he picked up young men in steam baths in Vienna and moved in a circle of exiles, homosexuals, and runaways. There, he met Ilse Klapper, born Herzfeld (1900–1982), a German Jewish woman fleeing her country's [[Nazism|Nazi]] government.<ref name="Lawlor">{{cite book|last=Lawlor |first=William |year=2005 |title=Beat Culture: Lifestyles, icons, and impact |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-400-4 |page=29 |language=en |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MMZqLXP01e4C}}</ref> The two were never romantically involved, but Burroughs married her, in [[Croatia]], against the wishes of his parents, to allow her to gain a visa to the United States. She made her way to New York City, and eventually divorced Burroughs, although they remained friends for many years.<ref name=Morgan-1988-2012/>{{rp|pages=65–68}} 

After returning to the United States, he held a string of uninteresting jobs. In 1939, his mental health became a concern for his parents, especially after he deliberately severed the last joint of his left little finger at the knuckle to impress a man with whom he was infatuated.<ref>Grauerholz, James. Introduction p. xv, in William Burroughs. ''Interzone''. New York: Viking Press, 1987.</ref> This event made its way into his early fiction as the novella "The Finger".

===Beginning of the Beats===
Burroughs enlisted in the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] early in 1942, shortly after the bombing of [[Pearl Harbor]] brought the United States into [[World War II]]. But when he was classified as a {{nowrap|1-A infantry,}} not an officer, he became dejected. His mother recognized her son's depression and got Burroughs a civilian disability discharge – a release from duty based on the premise that he should have not been allowed to enlist due to previous mental instability. After being evaluated by a family friend, who was also a neurologist at a psychiatric treatment center, Burroughs waited five months in limbo at [[Jefferson Barracks]] outside St.&nbsp;Louis before being discharged. During that time he met a Chicago soldier also awaiting release, and once Burroughs was free, he moved to Chicago and held a variety of jobs, including one as an [[Pest control|exterminator]]. When two of his friends from St.&nbsp;Louis – [[University of Chicago]] student [[Lucien Carr]] and his admirer, David Kammerer – left for New York City, Burroughs followed.