That rewriting of literary history is most obvious in the case of The Yage Letters, where I was able to show that the true history inverts the offici…

- Oliver Harris

A good deal of editing a manuscript looks like mechanical work, as if anyone with time on their hands and a magnifying glass could do it. But at a ce…

- Oliver Harris

I was suckered in by the myth of the man [ William Burroughs] as much as by his work.

- Oliver Harris

I like to focus on the varieties of paper, the different sizes and watermarks, evidence perhaps of what was typed when and sometimes where and by who…

- Oliver Harris

Of course, for me Naked Lunch was the big one, but I still believe I was right to pass on that. James Grauerholz and Barry Miles did an important job…

- Oliver Harris

It started out as a typically insane idea to map every part of the published text in terms of its manuscript provenance and history, and to establish…

- Oliver Harris

I am always looking for some clue, some easily missed sign that might just be the missing piece in the puzzle.

- Oliver Harris

I tell this anecdote with tongue in cheek at the start of my book William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, but my academic involvement with B…

- Oliver Harris

I have really been fortunate, incredibly privileged, to have done so much editorial work, and I would love to do more. But just as my editions have t…

- Oliver Harris