The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean (Subterranean Lives)

356 Pages·2006·1.2 MB·English

by  Fitz Hugh Ludlow

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The
Hasheesh
Eater
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subterranean lives
CHRONICLES OF ALTERNATIVE AMERICA
Bradford Verter, series editor
ADVISORY BOARD
Gerald Early
Ann Fabian
Helen L. Horowitz
Regina Kunzel
David Roediger
Subterranean Lives reprints first-person accounts from the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries by members of oppositional or stig-
matized subcultures; memoirs by men and women who lived,
whether by circumstance, inclination, or design, outside of the
bounds of normative bourgeois experience. They include tramps,
sex workers, cultists, criminals, drug addicts, physically disabled
people, sexual minorities, bohemians, revolutionaries, and other
individuals who have survived on the margins, within the inter-
stices, and across the boundaries of American society. Each volume
presents either a book-length memoir or a selection of shorter texts
in their entirety, together with an introduction and notes.
The Road,Jack London
Todd DePastino, editor
The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passagesfrom the Life of a Pythagorean,
Fitz Hugh Ludlow
Stephen Rachman, editor
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The
Hasheesh
Eater
Being Passages from the Life
of a Pythagorean
Fitz Hugh Ludlow
Edited and with an Introduction by
Stephen Rachman
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ludlow, Fitz Hugh, 1836–1870.
The hasheesh eater : being passages from the life of a Pythagorean /
Fitz Hugh Ludlow ; edited and with an introduction by Stephen
Rachman.
p. cm.—(Subterranean lives)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8135-3868-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8135-3869-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Rachman, Stephen. II. Title. III. Series.
PS2350.L5H37 2006
818' .307—dc22
2005035514
A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Copyright © 2006 by Rutgers, The State University
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please
contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway,
NJ 08854-8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as
defined by U.S. copyright law.
Book design by Karolina Harris
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
Selected Bibliography xxxvii
A Note on the Text xxxix
The Hasheesh Eater 1
Explanatory Notes 283
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Acknowledgments
For the preparation of this text, I would like to acknowledge the
assistance of the series editor, Brad Verter. Without his encourage-
ment and excellent advice this book would never have seen the light
of day. The work of two independent scholars, Donald P. Dulchinos
and David Gross, has been especially useful in tracking down virtu-
ally any and all materials concerning Fitz Hugh Ludlow. The staff
of the Michigan State University Libraries system, especially those in
Interlibrary Services, was indispensable to my research. I would also
like to thank Joanna Levin for long ago sending me photocopies of
hard-to-find Ludlow articles in The Golden Era. My conversations
with my colleagues and students at Michigan State, especially Scott
Michaelsen and Peter Ford, have proved most helpful. At Rutgers
University Press, I would like to thank Ann Fabian for her abiding
faith in me and Kendra Boileau for her patience and help with the
preparation of the manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank my
wife, Anne-Marie, for all her love, interest, support, and patience in
allowing me to see this project through to completion. I dedicate this
book to her.
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Introduction
Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1836–70) was twenty-one years old when The
Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagoreanbecame
the scandalous success of 1857–58. He had graduated from Union
College in Schenectady, New York, in 1856. He had tried his hand at
teaching literature at Watertown Academy in upstate New York,
found the workload overwhelming and uncongenial, and was living
at home with his stepmother and sister in the house of his father, the
Reverend Henry Gilbert Ludlow (1797–1867) of Poughkeepsie. Fitz
Ludlow had been using hasheesh1for three or four years, but in late
1856 he managed to kick his habit with the help of a medical man,
Dr. William Rosa, and various techniques from drinking lemonade
to blowing soap bubbles. In his newly won sobriety, finding himself
unemployed, he decided to write a memoir of his experiences. First
a brief article, “The Apocalypse of Hasheesh,” appeared in Putnam’s
Monthly magazine in December 1856. Nearly a year later, the full-
fledged memoir appeared, published by Harper Brothers in New
York and Sampson Low and Sons in London. Ludlow had trans-
formed his nervous, sickly, secretly wayward youth into a serious lit-
erary accomplishment.
The book sold briskly and would run through four editions by the
outbreak of the Civil War, garnering generally positive and many
glowing reviews even as some condemned the dangers of hasheesh. A
review in Graham’s gushed, “Those desirous of reading one of the
most extraordinary, fantastic, and beautifully-delirious books ever
written should get ‘The Hasheesh Eater.’”2 The Knickerbocker felt
sure that hasheesh would become a fad. “The Yan-ne-kees [sic]