Books

First edition in book form, first printing, of the author's semi-fictional account of his trip to Las Vegas, accompanied by his lawyer and a collection of drugs resembling "a mobile police narcotics lab" (p. 4). The novel was adapted into a film by Terry Gilliam in 1998, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. "Written in the voice of Thompson's alter ego, Raoul Duke, a cynical, chain-smoking, whiskey-guzzling, gun-loving connoisseur of illicit drugs, [Fear and Loathing] chronicled the chemically enhanced adventures of Duke and his companion, Dr. Gonzo, as they explored the crassness of American culture" (ANB). The novel's blend of fact and fiction initiated the genre of "gonzo journalism", which rejected objectivity and placed the writer or reporter at the centre of the story. It first appeared in November 1971 as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine. Octavo. Original grey boards, black cloth backstrip, spine lettered and with publisher's device in silver, Steadman design to front cover in blind. With dust jacket. Illustrated title page and 19 line drawings by Ralph Steadman. Gentle lean to spine, top edge lightly sunned, scratches to rear endpapers; nick to head of spine panel, dust jacket mildly browned and foxed, unclipped: a very good copy in like jacket. .

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.