Memoir PDF EPUB

The Hashish Eater

Downloads: Under 100
First published: 1857
Pages: 251

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About this book

Fitz Hugh Ludlow published this strange memoir in 1857, when he was barely out of college, modeling it on De Quincey's confessions of an opium eater. It recounts his experiments with cannabis, then sold openly as a medicine, and the vivid, terrifying, and expansive visions it produced. Ludlow writes of time stretching, plain rooms swelling into cathedrals, and a mind that seemed to touch the infinite before turning on him as dependency set in. Part travelogue of inner space, part cautionary tale, the book became an early American document of drug experience and a favorite of later countercultural readers. Its ornate prose carries a real reckoning with pleasure, addiction, and the self. This free PDF and EPUB edition preserves a curious classic of nineteenth century writing.

About the author

Fitz Hugh Ludlow

Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1836-1870) was an American author and journalist best remembered for The Hasheesh Eater, written while he was still in his early twenties. He wrote widely on travel and the American West, struggled with addiction, and died young in Switzerland while seeking a cure for tuberculosis.

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