Few drinks conjure the cultural associations and charged atmospheres that absinthe does, even now, some 70 years after its ban in Europe and the U.S. Freelance writer Conrad sees absinthe "as a skeleton key to the fin de siecle's secrets." An engaging combination of art history, sociology, travelogue and artists' biography, this clever hybrid recounts both the praise heaped upon the alcoholic beverage and the tales of destroyed creativity and absinthe-related violence that led to its prohibition. Turn-of-the-century Paris comes alive, as does its expatriate society of the '20s. Oil paintings, etchings and artifacts with absinthe themes by Manet, Van Gogh, Lautrec and others adorn the pages, and quotes and anecdotes about the green liqueur by Wilde, Baudelaire and Hemingway fill the well-researched text. More sober chapters include "The Origins of Ancient and Modern Absinthe" and "Absinthe and Politics," which links certain temperance movements to anti-Semitism. Like its subject, this volume is addictive and enchanting.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

La Fee Verte (or "The Green Fairy") has intoxicated artists, poets, and writers ever since the late eighteenth century. Stories abound of absinthe's druglike sensations of mood lift and inspiration due to the presence of wormwood, its infamous "special" ingredient, which ultimately leads to delirium, homicidal mania, and death. Opening with the sensational 1905 Absinthe Murders, Phil Baker offers a cultural history of absinthe, from its modest origins as an herbal tonic through its luxuriantly morbid heyday in the late nineteenth century. Chronicling a fascinatingly lurid cast of historical characters who often died young, the absinthe scrapbook includes Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, August Strindberg, Alfred Jarry, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Allais, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso. Along with discussing the rituals and modus operandi of absinthe drinking, Baker reveals the recently discovered pharmacology of how real absinthe actually works on the nervous system, and he tests the various real and fake absinthe products that are available overseas. The Book of Absinthe is a witty, erudite primer to the world's most notorious drink.

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From Kirkus Reviews Absinthe: A limpid novella (really only a long story) from the miniaturist master whose earlier fictions include Annam (1996) and Hourmaster (1998). Set in Provence around the time of WW1, it's the story of the reclusive Jean Mardet's obsession with the narcotic liquor he distills from indigenous plants, and the effect of his creation as perceived by a disapproving government (``the consumption of absinthe is developing among the population a spirit of rebellion''). A splendid little allegory of the conflict between folkways and modern society with an exactly appropriate bitter aftertaste.
Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Reviewer: A reader
A tasty little memoir or meditation! As the author sips the liqueur favoured by so many nineteenth-century authors and artists in a New Orleans café, he muses on a variety of subjects from mystical visions of rainbows and peacocks to Prohibition and other issues of social mores. For collectors of Crowley's pioneering writing on drugs, probably a must-have. The pamphlet-like edition is somewhat marred by amateurish typography (the omission of accents in French quotations is particularly annoying), but an enjoyable read nonetheless. I found the quality of the writing to be reasonable value for my money. Cheers!

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Translator Mark Spitzer picked rare items that either particularly interested him or had never been published in English before. It includes poems from Rimbaud's childhood, early drafts of more famous works, parodies of other poets, letters from his sojourn in Africa and even police reports of the incident in which his lover, Paul Verlaine, shot and wounded him. Spitzer's insightful endnotes proved indispensable throughout. Without them, the many obscure references and allusions in Rimbaud's poetry and letters would have lost me. In fact, without a previous knowledge of Rimbaud's works and biography, I would have found much of this collection excruciating. It's not meant as a sampling of Rimbaud's finest. He might well cringe if he were alive to see some of these childhood works and rough drafts in print. But for the Rimbaud enthusiast who has exhausted existing translations of the more famous works and yearns to read more, I wholeheartedly recommend ABSINTHE TO ABYSSINIA.

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Marie-Claude Delahaye is a lecturer in cellular biology at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris. She is also a leading absinthe historian with several books to her credit, all in French to date. Delahaye created the Musée de l'Absinthe in 1994 in Auvers-sur-Oise, the village where Vincent van Gogh and his brother, Theo, are buried.

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