Postcards of the S. S. Roma, Italian Line (n.d., c.1940)

Milan, Italy: Edizioni Propaganda (postcard), c. 1940.
4.125" x 5.875", postcard.

An unused postcard showing the steamship S. S. Roma, on the Italian Line. Undated, likely around 1940.

On 2 August 1937, William S. Burroughs – who had been studying in Vienna – married Ilse Herzfeld Klapper, a Jewish woman from Hanover, in order to save her from the Nazis. On 10 August 1937, William S. Burroughs boarded the SS Roma in Naples, Italy to return to New York City. Ilse was unable to come with him due to visa issues, and was unable to join Burroughs in America until 1939.

This was the boat that he travelled back to New York on.

Another postcard of the same boat, also undated, is in the archive. 3" x 5.5"