Author's presentation copy of the second edition of Lallemand's rare tale of the coming society, and the first to attribute authorship. First published as Le Hachych in 1843, its new title here is more explicit as to its intents. This was the first European work to use the drug hashish as its basic plot device.

Author's presentation copy of the second edition of Lallemand's rare tale of the coming society, and the first to attribute authorship. First published as Le Hachych in 1843, its new title here is more explicit as to its intents. This was the first European work to use the drug hashish as its basic plot device.

The work purports to be a translation from an Arabic manuscript which the author has discovered in his cabin whilst sailing for Marseille. It veers between the sensational and the doctrinal, particularly in its fundamental conceit that hashish not only provides consolation for the present, but an intimation and aspect of the future.

In the early 1840s the French psychiatrist Moreau had begun studying the possible therapeutic applications of hashish, in the process installing himself as purveyor to the famous Club des Hachichins, an elegant coterie presided over by author and dilettante Gautier. But it fell to the well-known surgeon and republican socialist Lallemand to write the first European work to use the drug as its basic plot device. This copy is inscribed by Lallemand "A mon ami Lougian [?sp]" in his distinctive sepia ink.