Editing William S. Burroughs (section)

===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".