American author & artist William Burroughs pictured at the infamous Beat Hotel in Paris 1962. In the typewriter is the original manuscript of his novel The Soft Machine. Burroughs declared he merely lived at the Beat Hotel as a matter of convenience and economy, although being cheap and relatively quiet.
Published in Town magazine in 1962, the article titled 'Dream Palace' was penned by the West Indian poet and novelist Dixie Nimmo. The location is described as 'A hotel, where the exiles of art drift in search of the freedom, the loneliness, the inspired squalor of Paris's Left Bank. The feature included residents at the time Kay 'Kaja' Johnson, Harold Norse, John 'Holy' Howley, Brion Gysin and Ian Somerville, who at the time were working on a 'Dream Machine.' Madame Rachou, the hotel's operator, was also photographed and described by Burroughs as 'the perfect landlady.'
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