[8], [181, [4] pp. Preface by Claude Farrère. Illustrations by Dalney. Text printed in sepia. 10½x8, contemporary full vellum with gold flecks, spine tooled in gilt, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, slipcase with marbled sides matching the endpapers; original color pictorial wrappers bound in. No. 89 of 100 copies on gold-flecked paper printed in sepia. First Edition.

Inscribed and signed by Claude Farrère at the end of the preface, to Jean Wiedmer. Considered the premiere philosophical treatise on the virtues of opium smoking, it is also among the rarest, published in a single issue of 220 copies in 1913. Lavishly illustrated throughout. Louis Laloy, a musicologist and author of the first biography of Debussy, and Claude Farrere, novelist and adventurer, were perhaps the most celebrated of the French writers on opium experience. Martin Booth, in Opium: A History, links the success of Laloy's book to the increased in opium smoking between the wars. Furthermore, it has been suggested that Laloy re-acquainted Jean Cocteau to opium while he was suffering from deep depression after the death of his friend Raymond Radiguet. Jean Wiedmer, to whom the book is inscribed, was a member of Jean Cocteau's circle. The striking vellum binding of this copy replicates the gold fleck design on the paper on which the book is printed, and has Wiedmer's initials stamped in gilt at the spine foot. Copies of the book printed in sepia on gold-flecked paper are more highly prized by collectors than those in black ink on plain paper. This copy was purchased by the present owner directly from the niece of Jean Wiedmer.