Substance Abuse Six Pack 3 presents another sextet of classic vice-related works: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
John Barleycorn by Jack London
Charles Baudelaire - His Life by Théophile Gautier
Ode On Indolence by John Keats
Habits That Handicap - The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the Remedy by Charles B. Towns
A Farewell to Tobacco by Charles Lamb
While not overtly about drug use, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written during a six-day cocaine binge and is the story of a man who ingests something and turns into a monster - an only slightly exaggerated version of what heavy cocaine consumption can do. Author Robert Louis Stevenson's drug use has been well documented. Of the cocaine-fueled writing binge that produced Jekyll and Hyde, perhaps Stevenson's greatest work and a classic of the horror genre, Stevenson's wife Fanny said: 'That an invalid in my husband's condition of health should have been able to perform the manual labour alone of putting 60,000 words on paper in six days, seems almost incredible.'
Charles Baudelaire, the subject of Charles Baudelaire - His Life by Théophile Gautier once wrote, "You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it." Baudelaire also struggled with opium.
Another literary giant hooked on the drug was John Keats, author of Ode on Indolence, first published in the spring of 1819. This was the peak of Keats' drug addiction, when he was experiencing "opiate reveries" like the ones described by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (See the first Substance Abuse Six Pack). Ode to Indolence, composed during this time, is considered to be a radical departure from his earlier poems.
Jack London, the author of John Barleycorn, died at the age of forty. In this autobiographical work, London describes his life as seen through the eyes of alcohol, personified in the eponymous character. With remarkable candor and insight, London describes the demons and gods he encounters through both friend and enemy, John Barleycorn.
In addition to these four classics, there is also a sophisticated Edwardian narcotics study - Habits That Handicap - The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the Remedy by Charles B. Towns - and A Farewell to Tobacco by Charles Lamb, a witty divertissement by the celebrated author of Tales From Shakespeare.
About the Author: Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (30 August 1811 - 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.
John Keats (31 October 1795 - 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work having been in publication for only four years before his death.
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 - 27 December 1834) was an English writer and essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764-1847).
John Griffith "Jack" London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone.
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 - 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Charles Barnes Towns (1862-1947) conducted experimentation with cures for alcoholism and drug addiction, and helped draft drug control legislation in the United States during the early 20th century.
