American journalist Hunter S. Thompson is a mythical figure, partly by his own design, and partly, perversely, against his wishes. Norman Mailer called him 'a legend in successful self-abuse.' Biographer E. Jean Carroll reported Thompson's daily working regime, which allegedly started at 3pm.

While writing he consumed: Chivas Regal, Dunhills, cocaine, orange juice, marijuana, Heineken, huge helpings of food, LSD, Chartreuse, clove cigarettes, gin and pornographic films. Compare this with the drug collection of Raoul Duke, the first person narrator of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a scorching epochal sensation. There are only two adjectives writers care about any more...'brilliant' and 'outrageous'...and Hunter Thompson has a free hold on both of them' (Tom Wolfe).

First edition, first printing; 8vo; illustrated throughout by Ralph Steadman; publisher's black cloth backed grey boards, titles to spine in silver, with the pictorial dust jacket, top edge of boards a little sun-struck, the merest trace of spotting to the endpapers and fore edge, in the particularly nice dust jacket.