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1914 |
Born February 5, in St. Louis, Missouri to Mortimer and Laura Burroughs. Born into wealth due to the Burroughs Adding Machine Corporation, founded by his grandfather, the inventor of the device |
| 1920-32 | Attends John Burroughs School and Taylor School in the St. Louis area. Attends Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico |
| 1922 | Writes first story, "The Autobiography of a Wolf." Refuses editorial advice of parents to change autobiography to biography |
| 1927 | Reads the autobiography of Jack Black, entitled You Can't Win and becomes enamored of the outlaw and his Black's underground lifestyle |
| 1929 | A short essay entitled "Personal Magnetism" published in the John Burroughs Review |
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| 1936 | B.A. in English Literature, "without honors," from Harvard |
| 1936-7 | Attends medical school at the University of Vienna. Marries Ilse Herzfeld Klapper |
| 1938 | Attends graduate school in anthropology at Harvard. Moves to Chicago after dropping out. Works as barman and private detective |
| 1939 | Cuts off left little finger due to infatuation and rejection. Shows it to his analyst at the time, who takes him to Bellevue |
| 1942 | Takes job as an exterminator after serving brief stint in U.S. Army |
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| 1943 | Moves to New York. Meets Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg |
| 1946 | Divorces Ilse Burroughs. Leaves for Texas with his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer. Settles in near New Waverly, Texas. Joan is committed to Bellevue for acute amphetamine psychosis. William Burroughs III conceived |
| 1947 | Birth of William Burroughs III, July 21 in Conroe, Texas |
| 1948 | Moves to Algiers after seeking treatment in Lexington, Kentucky for morphine addiction |
| 1949 | After being arrested for possession of drugs and firearms, family flees to Mexico City. Visits Ecuador in search of yage |
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| 1950 | Begins writing Junkie |
| 1951 | September 6, kills Joan while playing William Tell. Joan's daughter and William III are sent to live with grandparents. Travels to Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru |
| 1952 | Begins writing Queer |
| 1953 | Publication of Junkie, under the pseudonym of William Lee. Moves to New York then Tangier. Begins writing Naked Lunch |
| 1955-7 | Moves to London. Undergoes treatment for morphine addiction. |
| 1958-9 | Moves to Paris with Ginsberg. Naked Lunch published. Begins editing first trilogy |
| 1960 | Moves to London. Publication of Exterminator! and Minutes to Go |
| 1961 | Moves to Tangier. Meets Timothy Leary. The Soft Machine published |
| 1962 | The Ticket That Exploded published |
| 1963 | Dead Fingers Talk and The Yage Letters published |
| 1964 | Nova Express published |
| 1965 | Moves to New York. Father dies. Boston trial of Naked Lunch |
| 1970 | Moves to London. Mother dies. The Job and The Last Words of Dutch Schultz published |
| 1971 | The Wild Boys published |
| 1974 | Moves to New York. Teaches at City College of New York. Meets James Grauerholz, David Bowie, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, the Rolling Stones, and Frank Zappa |
| 1975 | Moves into "The Bunker," located at 222 Bowery. Port of Saints and The Book of Breeething published |
| 1976 | Cobble Stone Gardens and The Retreat Diaries published |
| 1978 | Nova Convention held in New York. The Third Mind published |
| 1979 | Blade Runner and Roosevelt After Inauguration published |
| 1980 | Burroughs begins taking heroin again |
| 1981 | Awarded the Medal of Arts and Letters by Jack Lang. Moves to Lawrence, Kansas. Death of his son. Cities of the Red Night published |
| 1983 | Inducted into the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters |
| 1984 | The Place of Dead Roads published |
| 1987 | Western Lands published |
| 1988-9 | On a proposal by Bob Wilson, he writes the libretto for "The Black Rider," music by Tom Waits. He acts in Laurie Anderson's "Home of the Brave," and Gus Van Sant's "Drugstore Cowboy" |
| 1990 | David Cronenberg films "Naked Lunch" |
| 1990-6 | Appears in various music videos, recordings, a Nike commercial, GAP ad campaign, "Twister," etc. |
| 1997 | Dies of a heart attack on August 2 in Lawrence, Kansas at 83 |