First Edition, first impression, in Great Britain. Publisher’s beige paper-covered boards with gilt lettering to spine. Clear, removable, archival protective cover fitted to the illustrated dust-jacket, lettered in red and black. Octavo. pp. [4], 252. Originally published in English by Olympia Press in 1959, and subsequently  by Grove Press, New York in 1962, Sugar Editore, Milan, 1963 and Editions Gallimard, Paris in 1964.  A book in Near Fine condition with a slight lean and odd speckle to top edge, in a Very Good dust-jacket with one tiny nick to rear top edge, slight edge creasing and a little rubbing, but which is not price-clipped (showing ‘42s’).  ‘The Naked Lunch is a book of beauty, great difficulty and maniacally exquisite insight’ - Norman Mailer. Naked Lunch is considered Burroughs' seminal work, and one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature. Extremely controversial in both its subject matter and its use of obscene language (something Burroughs recognised and intended), the book was banned in Boston and Los Angeles in the United States, and several European publishers were harassed. It was one of the more recent American books over which an obscenity trial was held.