Title Pending 85417

By tracing the publication history of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, this article shows how gate-keeping mechanism censorship can facilitate literary prestige. The release Grove Press edition Lunch in 1966 after two obscenity trials marked end complete US and was a crucial step towards canonization underground authors. making it necessary to argue on behalf text’s form, helped framing Burroughs’s arguably “formless” text as both coherent work high merit. offers detailed account enabling role case which consisted not only generating interest publishers (Olympia Paris US) but also helping formless, fragmented take shape novel.