A Supernatural Drug Novel
Keef: A Life-Story in Nine Phases
Publication: Boston: Charles E. Brown & Co., 1897. First Edition.
Notes: The first edition of an uncommon 19th-century novel about an artist who finds transcendence, inspiration, and an obsessive, murderous love through the use of hashish. Unlike many such social issue novels of the period, the artist gets away with murdering his beloved (he kills her using a psychic connection so that they can be together spiritually) and escapes the United States to live out his life in a drug-fueled haze.
Several copies of this book have turned up in the last year, but they all seem to have originated with the collection of Ronald Siegel, who edited a recent reprint of the book. Historically, Keef has been a scarce book.
An 1897 review of the book nicely summarizes the content:
'Keef,' the author tells us at the beginning of his story, is a Moorish preparation of Indian hemp, and, in its essential principle, is identical with the hasheesh [hashish] of the Turks and the majoon of Calcutta. The hero of the tale, Leon Abeccasis, a young Algerine painter, became a victim to its fascinations, and for the rest of his life lived in an unreal world, a world of visions whose very unsustainability was its charm. Painting was with him a passion, but it was impossible for him to keep up his inspiration at all times, and he felt that the soul with which his pictures should be imbued was lacking.
"Continually the question came up before him, Was there in nature any material agency, any drug or stimulant which would make permanent the inspiration which now came only in flashes. In turn he experimented with alcohol, absinthe, cocaine, and opium, but the results were not those desired. At last he thought himself of Keep, and in that found the key to the treasure-house of ideals.
"By its means the mental faculties were aroused to abnormal sensitiveness and activity, so much so that by degrees he was able to see and communicate with the spiritual selves of those in harmony with him. One night, while smoking the drug...he was conscious of the presence of the spirit of a woman, the still-living author of a romance he was reading...With this vision he fell madly in love...He recognized the woman in the flesh whom he had until then worshiped in dreams. He found after he had come to know her that she was subject to strange fainting spells, and that these spells were in some strange way connected to his use of Keef.
"It was certain that if he persisted in its se it would eventually kill her. She was married, and he felt certain that in her earthly life she could never be his; if dead, her spirit could be with him continually. His mind was made up...He plunged at once into an excessive use of the drug, and in a few days [her] end came...The painter...went back to Algiers to spend the remainder of his life in smoking Keef."—Boston Evening Transcript, June 23, 1897.
[i–ii: blank] [iv] 1–151 [152] [153–154: blank] pages. Plus seven black-and-white plates by Ritchie. On Bleiler's The Checklist of Science-fiction and Supernatural Fiction. 6-3/4 by 4-1/2 inches.
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). Maroon cloth stamped in gilt with light wear to the edges. Previous owner's name (Mrs. L.S. Barrett) on the front free endpaper. A few leaves roughly opened.
Item No: #363635
Price: $2,000