The Hasheesh Eater
by Fitz Hugh Ludlow
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Description
Fitz-Hugh Ludlow was a recent graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York, when he vividly recorded his hasheesh-induced visions, experiences, adventures, and insights. During the mid-nineteenth century, the drug was a legal remedy for lockjaw and Ludlow had a friend at school from whom he received a ready supply. He consumed such large quantities at each sitting that his hallucinations have been likened to those experienced by opium addicts. Throughout the book, Ludlow colorfully show more describes his psychedelic journey that led to extended reflections on religion, philosophy, medicine, and culture. First published in 1857, The Hasheesh Eater was the first full-length American example of drug literature. Yet despite the scandal that surrounded it, the book quickly became a huge success. Since then, it has become a cult classic, first among Beat writers in the 1950's and 1960's, and later with San Francisco Bay area hippies in the 1970's. In this first scholarly edition, editor Stephen Rachman positions Ludlow's enduring work as not just a chronicle of drug use but also as a window into the budding American bohemian literary scene. A lucid introduction explores the breadth of Ludlow's classical learning as well as his involvement with the nineteenth-century subculture that included fellow revelers such as Walt Whitman and the pianist Louis Gottshalk. With helpful annotations guiding readers through the text's richly allusive qualities and abundance of references, this edition is ideal for classroom use as well as for general readers. show lessTags
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11+ Works 85 Members
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- People/Characters
- Fitz Hugh Ludlow
- Important events
- 19th century
- First words
- Editor's Introduction: Fitz Hugh Ludlow was the son of a minister who was well-versed in the classics and who already knew the Christian Bible backwards and forwards and in the original Greek when he started on the adventure... (show all)s that he relates in The Hasheesh Eater.
Author's Preface: I like prefaces as little as my readers can.
Author's Introduction: The singular energy and scope of imagination which characterize all Oriental tales, and especially that great typical representative of the species, the Arabian Nights, were my ceaseless marvel from ea... (show all)rliest childhood.
Chapter One: About the shop of my friend Anderson the apothecary there always existed a peculiar fascination, which early marked it out as my favorite lounging-place. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)At least for the present - as a proviso to the proposition let this be added - for he who has once looked upon great glories can not but hope to behold them again, when nature is freed from all the grossness which makes them painful in the present state, and they shall come to him, not through walls which they must melt to make a passage-way, but like the sunlight, which, falling joyously and harmlessly, bathes the forehead of the little child asleep.
- Blurbers
- McKenna, Terence
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Literature Studies and Criticism
- DDC/MDS
- 818.307 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American miscellaneous writings in English Middle 19th Century 1830-61
- LCC
- PS2350 .L5 .H37 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 19th century
- BISAC
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- Members
- 72
- Popularity
- 434,655
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English, Finnish, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 16
- ASINs
- 5
