The Drug User: Documents 1840-1960

By Strausbaugh & Blaise

Book Overview

Stories include C. Baudelaire, J. Cocteau, A. Nin and A. Huxley re drug experience. Hasish use circa 1910, 1857; opium addictions early 1900's by artists, peyote, LSD. A good read. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0922233055
• ISBN13: 9780922233052
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Blast Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

LEGENDARY: SOME OF THE GREATEST MINDS...ON DRUGS!

This mesmerizing collection of essays shows a wide range of ideas concerning drug use at a time when most drugs were still legal. The foreword is by William S. Burroughs, with an introduction by John Strausbaugh. Essays include examples by Jean Cocteau, Aldous Huxley, Albert Hofmann, Baudelaire, Anais Nin, and, believe it or not, Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud!

Just Say Something

A documentary anthology focusing almost exclusively on writings by and about people using drugs before the 1960s -- before, as one of its editors states, "the modern era of drug use and drug hysteria." The sources collected within are excerpted from some of the more usual suspects, like Jean Cocteau, Aldous Huxley, Albert Hofmann, and Baudelaire, but there are also a few surprises (for example, Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud). The reader will come away with a newfound understanding of how unoriginal much of our present dialogue over similar issues actually is.

A good source for historical drug texts

A compilation of selections for those interested in drug use by historical figures. Features Anais Nin dropping acid, Sigmund Freud on cocaine, Mark Twain nearly becoming a coca trader, as well as the usual suspects (Hofmann, Baudelaire, Huxley, Ludlow) and others.