You Can't Win

A.L. Burt Publishers, 1928. Hardcover. Good. Green cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine, 394 pp. + ads. Spine lettering dulled and rubbed, joints exposed at title page and last index page, stain to p. 53/4. Autobiography of a thief and hobo, originally published in a series of articles in the San Francisco Call-Bulletin. Although Black accepts the fact that he would be better off if he had worked “at any useful occupationâ€, he is also content with his state of affairs: “I have no money, no wife, no auto. I have no dog. I have neither a radio set nor a rubber plantâ€"I have no troubles.†(p. 394) This book was one of the major literary influences on a young William S. Burroughs.