Folio Society – Signed Collector’s Edition – FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson

One of 35 copies signed by the illustrator, Ralph Steadman

Hunter S. Thompson’s acid-laced counterculture classic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, is given the ultimate collector’s makeover in this 50th anniversary Folio Society edition featuring Ralph Steadman’s original illustrations and an exclusive introduction by David Mamet. 

With their rental car packed full of psychedelic drugs, Hunter S. Thompson and his attorney, the Samoan, embark on the greatest narcotics-fuelled road trip in journalistic history. Sent to cover the Mint 400 race in Las Vegas, the pair ditch the story to find the dark side of the American dream … while doped up on a heady cocktail of booze, pills and powder. As reality and fantasy are blurred beyond recognition, their chemical encounters with the city’s reprobates become increasingly weird and darkly comic. The 50th anniversary of publication is the backdrop for this collector’s edition and it is a psychedelic showcase of Thompson’s hallucinatory ‘memoir’. Every one of Ralph Steadman’s iconic and grotesquely compelling original illustrations has been carefully coloured by Neil Gower, with Steadman’s approval, while David Mamet’s exclusive new introduction completes this unique edition.

Originally published as a two-part story in Rolling Stone magazine, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was released in book form in 1972. For the first time, Ralph Steadman’s iconic magazine illustrations, plus his two Rolling Stone covers, are brought together in one edition. From the hideous, hallucinatory ‘lizard people’ to the jacked-up, doped-out, blitzed and psychotic snapshots of this drug binge, Steadman’s mesmerising and irreverent illustrations will always be synonymous with Thompson’s work. In his new and exclusive introduction for this edition, author, screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet explores the history of pseudo-biographical journalism via Twain, Hemingway and Sterne, among others. His personal anecdotes and encyclopaedic knowledge are a rollercoaster ride around the genre, the pinnacle of which, in Mamet’s opinion, is Thompson’s ‘superb book’.

The literary symbol of the anti-American dream, Thompson’s chronicle of unashamed drug abuse and disregard for the status quo became a rebel call for a generation. His unique style of first-person reportage inspired ‘gonzo journalism’, and he joined a wave of reporters – Wolfe and Burroughs among them – who had blazed a trail by becoming active participants in their stories. Fear and Loathing took the style to the extreme and remains one of the greatest examples of the genre. Whether returning to the novel or enviably reading it for the first time, this unique 50th anniversary edition is the ultimate introduction to the greatest psychoactive literary trip through seventies American drug culture.

Production Details:-

• Signed by Ralph Steadman

• Bound in printed and blocked cloth

• Set in Electra with Alternate Gothic as display

• 232 pages

• 26 full-colour illustrations integrated throughout the text, including 5 double-page spreads

• Metallic endpapers

• Printed, soft-touch laminated slipcase

• 9½˝ x 6¼˝

CONDITION: Book is NEW and still in its Folio Society’s eco-friendly wrapper (see photos 1 & 2). Photos 3 to 11 are stock photos.

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