Dead Drunk – Tales of Intoxication and Demon Drinks
Dead Drunk – Tales of Intoxication and Demon Drinks, edited by Pam Lock / From the British Library’s “Tales of the Weird” series / ISBN 9780712354097 / 267-page paperback published in 2023
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With a stiff measure of the supernatural, a dram of melodrama and a chaser of the cautionary kind, tales of drink and drunkenness can be found in a well- stocked cabinet of Victorian and early twentieth-century fiction, reflecting an anxiety about the impact of alcohol and intoxicants in society, as well as an acknowledgment of their influence on humans’ perception of reality.
Featuring drink-fueled classics such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘The Body Snatcher’ alongside obscurities from periodicals such as Blackwood’s Magazine, this new collection offers a (somewhat poisoned) chalice of dark and stormy short fiction, brimming with the weird, the grotesque, the entertaining and the outlandish.
