Books

First edition, first printing, signed and dated by the author on 27 July 1977 on the third leaf, and signed by him again on the half-title. Thompson's semi-fictional account of his trip to Las Vegas while accompanied by his lawyer and a collection of drugs resembling "a mobile police narcotics lab" (p. 4) was adapted into the 1998 film 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. The tale first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine in November 1971. Publication in book form came the following June and dust jackets from the first printing are dated 6/72 on the rear flap, as here. Octavo. Original black quarter cloth, spine lettered in silver, grey board sides, blind pictorial block on front cover after Steadman. With dust jacket. Illustrated title page and 19 line drawings by Ralph Steadman. Slight lean to spine, board edges sunned, contents clean; unclipped jacket a little toned and creased, small tear to spine head, occasional nick: 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.