LIN LEE ( MOCCA )

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The Naked Lunch

The book was originally published with the title The Naked Lunch in Paris in July 1959. Because of US obscenity laws, a complete American edition did not follow until 1962. It was titled Naked Lunch and was substantially different from the Olympia Press first edition, because it was based on an earlier manuscript in Allan Ginsberg's possession. The article "the" in the title was never intended by the author, but added by the editors of the Olympia Press 1959 edition.^[Nonetheless The Naked Lunch remained the title used for the 1968 and 1974 Corgi books editions, and the novel is often known by the alternative name.

Burroughs states in his introduction that Kerouac suggested the title. "The title means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork." In a June 1960 letter to Ginsberg, Kerouac said he was pleased that Burroughs had credited him with the title. He states that Ginsberg misread "Naked Lust" from the manuscript, and only he noticed; that section of the manuscript later became Queer, although the phrase does not appear in either of the two final texts of that novel.