Lorrain, Jean

Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker

Tartarus Press:
North Yorkshire: 2002
Hardcover, Limited edition, Fine in Fine dust jacket,
247 pp

Limited to 350 copies. Lorrain was a leading figure in the French Decadent Movement of the 1880s. He was heavily into ether. It was this dangerous drug that, probably, provided the stimulus (quite literally) and the imagery for the stories contained in this collection. It was also ether that more than likely finally destroyed Lorrain’s fragile health. Brian Stableford does the translating and provides a very interesting and insightful introduction that sheds a great deal of light on this literary figure as well as the Decadent Movement in general. Bad trips, man. Lorrain was a bit before his time - he needed to be a contemporary of Timothy Leary. Surreal and freakish nightmare stories from a drug-crazed literary genius living in France during the later part of the nineteenth century.   #16516