Historique
Livre
Emperors of Dreams : Drugs in the nineteenth century
Auteur(s) :
JAY, M.
Année
2011
Page(s) :
254 p.
Langue(s) :
Anglais
Éditeur(s) :
Cambs : Dedalus Ltd
, Revised and updated
ISBN :
978-1-907650-18-5
Domaine :
Autres substances / Other substances ; Drogues illicites / Illicit drugs
Thésaurus mots-clés
LITTERATURE
;
HISTOIRE
;
CULTUREL
;
PROTOXYDE D'AZOTE
;
COCAINE
;
OPIUM
;
ETHER
;
CHLOROFORME
;
CHAMPIGNONS HALLUCINOGENES
;
MESCALINE
;
PROHIBITION
;
SOBRIETE
Note de contenu :
CONTENTS:
• Preface to the new edition
• Introduction
• 'O! Excellent air bag': Nitrous oxide
• The black drop: Opium
• The Seraphim theatre: Cannabis
• Attack of the vapours: Ether and chloroform
• 'Watson, the needle!': Cocaine
• A new artificial paradise: Mushrooms and mescaline
• Ardent spirits: Temperance and prohibition
• Appendix: Selected texts
• Preface to the new edition
• Introduction
• 'O! Excellent air bag': Nitrous oxide
• The black drop: Opium
• The Seraphim theatre: Cannabis
• Attack of the vapours: Ether and chloroform
• 'Watson, the needle!': Cocaine
• A new artificial paradise: Mushrooms and mescaline
• Ardent spirits: Temperance and prohibition
• Appendix: Selected texts
Résumé :
Coleridge and de Quincey swilling bitter draughts of laudanum, Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes dallying with cocaine, Baudelaire and Gautier rapt in hashish fantasies behind velvet curtains, even Queen Victoria swallowing her prescription dose of cannabis - these snapshot images are familiar, but what is the story which lies behind them? How did cannabis and cocaine, opium and ether, mushrooms and mescaline enter the worlds of nineteenth century Britain, Europe and America, and what was their impact on the century's dreams and nightmares?
"Emperors of Dreams" paints a fresh and startling picture both of today's illicit drugs and of the nineteenth century in general. It shows that the age of Empire and Victorian values was awash with drugs, and traces their course through the rapidly evolving arenas of science and colonial expansion and the demimondes of popular subculture and literary fashion, putting into context the drug habits and references of writers as diverse as Coleridge, de Quincey, Baudelaire, Dumas, Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, William James and Sigmund Freud.
"Emperors of Dreams" paints a fresh and startling picture both of today's illicit drugs and of the nineteenth century in general. It shows that the age of Empire and Victorian values was awash with drugs, and traces their course through the rapidly evolving arenas of science and colonial expansion and the demimondes of popular subculture and literary fashion, putting into context the drug habits and references of writers as diverse as Coleridge, de Quincey, Baudelaire, Dumas, Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, William James and Sigmund Freud.
Affiliation :
United Kingdom
Cote :
L01856