The dates refer to the time of writing, not publication, which in some cases was not until decades later: Early work (early 1950s) Junkie, Queer and The Yage Letters are relatively straightforward linear narratives, written in and about Burroughs' time in Mexico City and South America. The cut-up period (mid-1950s to mid-1960s) Although published before Burroughs discovered the cut-up technique, Naked Lunch is a fragmentary collection of "routines" from The Word Hoard – manuscripts written in Tangier, Paris, London, as well as of other texts written in South America such as "The Composite City", blending into the cut-up and fold-in fiction also partly drawn from The Word Hoard: The Soft Machine, Nova Express, The Ticket That Exploded, also referred to as "The Nova Trilogy" or "The Cut-Up Trilogy", self-described by Burroughs as an attempt to create "a mythology for the space age". Interzone also derives from the mid-1950s. Experiment and subversion (mid-1960s to mid-1970s) This period saw Burroughs continue experimental writing with increased political content and branching into multimedia such as film and sound recording. Perhaps the defining and most important of which works is The Third Mind (with Brion Gysin) announced in 1966 and not published until the late '70s. The only major novels written in this period are The Wild Boys, and Port of Saints (republished in a different rewritten form in 1980, in the style Burroughs would adopt at that time). However he also wrote dozens of published articles, short stories, scrap books and other works, several in collaboration with Brion Gysin. The major anthologies representing work from this period are The Burroughs File, The Adding Machine and Exterminator!. The Red Night trilogy (mid-1970s to mid-1980s) The books Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands came from Burroughs in a final, mature stage, creating a complete mythology. Burroughs also produced numerous essays and a large body of autobiographical material, including a book with a detailed account of his own dreams (My Education: A Book of Dreams). Reaction to critics and view on criticism Several literary critics treated Burroughs' work harshly. For example, Anatole Broyard and Philip Toynbee wrote devastating reviews of some of his most important books. In a short essay entitled "A Review of the Reviewers", Burroughs answers his critics in this way: Burroughs clearly indicates here that he prefers to be evaluated against such criteria over being reviewed