Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle

Mysteriously sophisticated, darkly alluring, almost Satanic: absinthe was the drink of choice for Baudelaire, Verlaine and Wilde. It inspired paintings by Degas and Manet, van Gogh and Picasso. It was blamed for conditions ranging from sterility to madness, to French defeats in World War I. The campaign against "the devil in a bottle" resulted in its ban throughout most of Europe. Its reputation for toxicity eventually extinguished the fin-de-siècle's infatuation with absinthe, but not before it had influenced generations of artists on both sides of the channel. This book is a biography of "the green fairy": from its place in the lives of writers and artists who were inspired—and ruined—by it, to its more recent rediscovery by Ernest Hemingway and today’s would-be sophisticates.

Mysteriously sophisticated, darkly alluring, almost Satanic: absinthe was the drink of choice for Baudelaire, Verlaine and Wilde. It inspired paintings by Degas and Manet, van Gogh and Picasso. It was blamed for conditions ranging from sterility to madness, to French defeats in World War I. The campaign against "the devil in a bottle" resulted in its ban throughout most of Europe. Its reputation for toxicity eventually extinguished the fin-de-siècle's infatuation with absinthe, but not before it had influenced generations of artists on both sides of the channel. This book is a biography of "the green fairy": from its place in the lives of writers and artists who were inspired—and ruined—by it, to its more recent rediscovery by Ernest Hemingway and today’s would-be sophisticates.

Jad Adams is a television producer whose last book Madder Music, Stronger Wine: The Life of Ernest Dowson, Poet and Decadent (I.B.Tauris), received resounding critical praise in Britain and the US. He has also written biographies of Tony Benn and of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.