A Modern De Quincey

Autobiography of an Opium Addict

By: Herbert R. Robinson, Gerry Abbott (Foreword by)

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Paperback | 1 October 2019 | Edition Number 2

At a Glance

Paperback
128 Pages

Edition Type
Revised

Dimensions(cm)
21.01 x 14.81 x 0.84

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Captain Robinson, completing a posting as a young British administrator in remote northern Burma, returned to Mandalay in 1923 to await a new assignment. One evening, Robinson and two friends came upon an opium den. While his friends called it a night, Robinson stayed on to sample the forbidden pleasures within—a decision that was to alter his life forever. Thus commences an incredible, autobiographical account of the seduction of a naive young romantic by the temptations of the East, and of his eventual narrow escape from death. First published in 1942, the book has become a sought-after rarity among British colonial accounts, now republished with a new foreword by Gerry Abbott.

Industry Reviews

“Those were the days when you could be the most disreputable Englishman in Mandalay…this book is a terrific read…” Phil Baker, Fortean Times, September 2005.

Robinson’s irreverent disregard for moral niceties and never-ending drug binges make this book an intriguing and exotic colonial precursor to Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Emma Larkin, South China Morning Post, July 11, 2004.

“…a beguiling period curio, full of sharp little glances into the life of a colonial administrator…haunted by Orwell’s ghost.” D. J. Taylor, Times Literary Supplement, August 6, 2004.

“This book is a small, but not valueless, contribution to the literature of opium.” George Orwell, The Observer, September 13, 1942.

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