Cocaine: A Poem & Early Book on Coke in Paris in 1920s

[boomer2]

First I have a poem I found in the late 1970s. The author is unknown and I cannot recall where it came from.  I once printed out small flyers of it and posted them around Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

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And here is Pitigrilli's famous book on the use of Cocaine in the the Left Bank Beatnick and Bohemian district of Paris in the early 1920s.

This is a full cover

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and inside cover

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from the Fitzhugh Ludlow Memorial Library of Drugs in San Francisco's reprint. They once had a great fire, suspected was the DEA , but never proven who started it.

Most of the remaining collection of drug materials have been in and out of storage for years.

About the author:

Pitigrilli, pseudonym for Dino Segre, (9 May 1893 - May 8, 1975) was an Italian writer.

He was born in Turin. His father was Jewish, his mother Catholic, and he grew up a Catholic. He graduated in Law at Turin in 1916.

He formed a relationship with the poet Amalia Guglielminetti, which lasted only a short time. He made a living as a journalist and writer of novels.

In 1924 he founded the literary magazine Grandi Firme, which attracted a large readership of young literati. The magazine lasted until 1938, when the Fascist Government banned it, in accordance with the Race Laws.

From 1930 he started travelling around Europe, staying mainly in Paris, with brief periods in Italy. He returned to Italy in 1940, risking being interned (as a Jew), but fled with his family in 1943 to Switzerland, where he stayed until 1947.

In 1948 he went to Argentina where he remained for ten years. He then returned to Europe, staying mainly in Paris while visiting his house in Turin occasionally. He was in Turin when he died.

Cocaïne (1921) is his most famous novel.

Works in English

    * Cocaine, New York, Greenberg, 1933.
    * The man who searched for love, translated by Warre B. Wells, New York, R. M. Mc Bride & Company, 1932.

wikipedia

boomer2

[JRL]

Ever read Crowley"s essay on cocaine?? The man knew his drugs.

[boomer2]

Ever read Crowley"s essay on cocaine?? The man knew his drugs.

No, but I will check it out. I have seen some of Crowley's occult materials back in the late 1970s and early 1980s when I had a partnership in a used bookstore in Seattle which was originally, at the time, the oldest head shop in Seattle. Now the oldest one is in the public market,

I also love Rudyard Kipling's poetry and Robert Service.

I cannot recall where the poem on Cocaine came from but it does have some initials on the page which suggests they were the title of the publication.  Might have been an underground newspaper or drug mag.

I have a great paper by Tolstoy on Amanita muscaria, hashish and alcohol written in the early 1900s. I will look for it in my files and post it here.

Boomer2