Alcohol aside, few substances can be said to have occupied such a place in Western literature as opium. From the exuberant isolation of Romanticism to the the paranoia of postmodernism, opiates have influenced a host of writers across a range of time periods, carrying them to the furthermost reaches of ecstasy and despair. This collection is a bringing together of writings by some of the best authors in the Western literary canon - from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Alfred Lord Tennyson to Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle - around a central theme which is fascinating for both historical and artistic reasons.