This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/26/2022
COCTEAU, Jean (1899–1963). Opium: The Diary of an Addict. Translated by Ernest Boyd. London: New York, and Toronto, 1932. 8vo. 27 plates after drawings by the author. Original publisher’s gilt–lettered green cloth; original price–clipped dust jacket (spine sunned, rubbing at extremes). FIRST EDITION, based on the author’s own addiction to, and recovery from, opium in 1929. “He explains that initially under the drug’s spell he had lived some of his finest hours, during which he opened himself up to the deepest layers of his being and experienced feelings of euphoria. But opium was a ‘living substance’ and like all drugs exacts a price. The opium–eater is, as he puts it, eventually eaten by opium” (Williams, p. 142).