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 official one.

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 the cultural meaning of the book, part and whole.

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 official one.

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 whom.

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 with their 2003 "Restored" edition because they knew what they wanted to do, and what they could do. At the time, I simply didn't know. I hadn't even edited Junky back then. So I did the right thing to pass. Instead, what I most want to do now is complete "The Making of Naked Lunch," on which I have been working, on and off, these past 25 years.

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 certain point, you need a strong interpretive conviction and, as you say, an "intangible" relationship to what you are doing.

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