[LUDLOW, Fitz Hugh (1836-1870)]. The Hasheesh Eater: Being the Passages from the Life of Pythagorean. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857.
8vo. Original blind-stamped brown cloth, gilt-stamped spine (recased, spine ends reinforced, upper cover stained, extremes a bit worn, front free endpaper and front fly corner clipped, front free endpaper excised and laid in); folding cloth chemise; leather-backed slipcase. Provenance: Mary Osborne, the author’s sister (see inscription); Mrs. Geo. A. Hayward (booklabel).
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST BOOK ON CANNABIS IN ENGLISH, inscribed by the author to his sister-in-law, Mary Osborne, on the front free endpaper.
The first full-length work of American drug literature that was “a sensation when it was first published (four printings in four years), then largely forgotten until the mind-altering drug renaissance of the 1960s, and now considered a neglected masterpiece of American literature and hallucinogenic drug experience… [This] book is an account of his experiments with large, psychedelic doses of cannabis extract while a student at Union College” (Horowitz, Phantastica 153). Gamage & Zerkin, p. 62. A Horowitz high spot.