COAKLEY, Timothy Wilfred. Keef: A Life-Story in Nine Phases. Boston: Charles E. Brown & Co., 1897.
Small 8vo. Numerous full-page plates by George Wistar Hodge Ritchie. Original gilt-lettered burgundy cloth, top edge gilt, others uncut (covers dampstained, most pages affected near gutter and outer margins, some gatherings over-opened).
FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION BY COAKLEY TO HIS BOYHOOD FRIEND, MICHAEL WARD.
An exceedingly rare title and the first known English novel in the genre of “Kif Literature”, written in the style of an Edgar Allan Poe horror story in which the narrator, a keef smoker, takes the reader through his supernatural search for love powered by “keef wisdom”. Dr. Siegel describes the importance of keef (commonly spelled “kief”) and the author’s pursuit to attain this “keef wisdom” in the preface of the recently republished edition of this title, Keef: A Story of Intoxication, Love & Death (2017): “Cannabis wisdom involves some consumption of cannabis itself, usually keef, never forbidden in the Islamic moral codes. It draws heavily on memories, themes, and everyday conversations derived from being under the influence. The storyteller must then weave such experiences with characters, settings, and plots that create meaning in a world which might otherwise reject the significance of keef or other cannabis preparations. The best illustrations of this wisdom are found in the keef literature discussed in the introduction. The novel by T.W. Coakley was the first in this genre, appearing in the century before the work of other writers like Paul Bowles and Jean Genet.” A Horowitz high spot.