William Lee New York: Ace Books, 1953. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature.

Junkie, William Burroughs' first novel, was published under the author's sobriquet, William Lee, and chronicled Burroughs' descent into the underworld drug culture of New York, New Orleans and Mexico City. Burroughs drew from his personal experiences the scenes of a novel Jack Kerouac described as "imitating a kind of anxious Dashiell Hammett of William Lee." Published as pulp fiction by his friend, Carl Solomon, who worked as an agent for Ace Books, Junkie sold an astonishing 113,170 copies, though most of the readers were not of the literary set that eventually admired Naked Lunch.

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