Elizabeth Barrett Browning, radiant opium addict.“I am writing such poems - allegorical - philosophical - poetical - ethical - synthetically arranged! I am in a fit of writing - could write all day & night - and long to live by myself for three months in a forest of chestnuts & cedars, in an hourly succession of poetical paragraphs & morphine draughts.” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to her brother, 1843.“Opium - opium - night after night!” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning.“Heaven bless hashish, if dreams end like this!” - Louisa May Alcott, Perilous Play (1869).Of delicate constitution to begin with, Elizabeth...
O. Henry’s Morphine Overdose, Pay-Scale, and Advice to Writers
Recently, while on recon for Book Patrol, I discovered Fog in Santone, a short story by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910) set in San Antonio Texas and loaded with morphine. In it, O. Henry limns the nexus of tuberculosis, desperate sufferers, and drug addiction amongst the sick and “sporting class" with lighthearted morbidity.In contrast to Fog in Santone, At Arms With Morpheus takes place in turn-of the-century New York City boarding house. From clues in the narrative, it is the boarding house located off Madison Square where Porter lived.In At Arms With Morpheus, which first appeared in the October,...
An O. Henry Story Loaded With Morphine
“The drug clerk looks sharply at the white face half concealed by the high-turned overcoat collar."’I would rather not supply you,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I sold you a dozen morphine tablets less than an hour ago.’“The customer smiles wanly. ‘The fault is in your crooked streets. I didn't intend to call upon you twice, but I guess I got tangled up. Excuse me."Thus begins Fog in Santone by American short story master O. Henry (1862-1910). Those who know O. Henry only as the author of the classic tale of loving sacrifice, The Gift of the Magi, with its typically O.Henry...